Just Like You, Only Different
by Bunnybell
Summary: As time passes, things change and people grow up. When Netto and Meiru receive an unexpected surprise, nothing will be the same for them... or for Rockman and Roll! Normal pairings, FLUFF.
1. Just Like Always, but Not Quite

I would like to warn you all that this story is pure FLUFF, and is thus mostly pointless. I'm also aware that this kind of story has been done a million times before... but never EXE style, so I'm going to give it a try! (Never mind, Necchan beat me to it! Gasp)

This is meant, at the very least, just to be a cute story. It's a little stupid, but I enjoy it. I hope you will too! Thanks go to Midnight Critic for telling me the beginning is not crap, and to Necchan for helping me get the courage to post this!

Oh, and nothing Megaman.EXE-related belongs to me. Thank Capcom for that.

--

Time never changed things much.

"Have faith in your dreams… and someday… rainbow… come shining through…"

Roll smiled fondly at her operator. It was a Tuesday, and that meant it was "Kitchen Cleaning Day". Every Tuesday for the last sixteen years had been that way.

When Hikari Netto turned five years old, his father gave him his own Net Navi as a birthday gift. Being five, Netto couldn't help but show off and make all of his friends super jealous. It took Meiru two and a half years of pestering her parents before they relented and bought her Roll. Even though Roll had also been a birthday gift like Rockman, she was one of the most expensive gifts Meiru had ever received. Meiru wanted a fully customizable Navi like Netto had, and, in exchange for getting the more pricy model, she agreed to do more chores and not get extra allowance for doing them.

Roll felt bad about this at first. Meiru told her not to worry; even at the age of seven, Meiru was pretty tidy person, so there were rarely any big messes to clean up. The only chore Meiru did not like was sweeping, because at the time she was too short to hold the broom properly. The only way she could sweep the floor was on her hands and knees with a dustpan and a small brush, which took about four times longer than a broom would have. Because of this, Meiru grew to hate cleaning the kitchen. When it came time to do chores, she always saved that room (and its large linoleum floor) for last.

Roll, wanting to be helpful, suggested that they make the cleaning a game. Meiru's favorite movie at the time was Cinderella, so Roll told Meiru to pretend she was Cinderella. Meiru was the beautiful heroine, her least favorite cousins were the evil stepsisters, and Roll was her Fairy Godmother. They dedicated Tuesdays solely to cleaning the kitchen, and Roll would play a Cinderella song from her PET so they could sing together as Meiru swept.

Now… It was hard to believe almost sixteen years had passed. Roll closed her eyes and could perfectly picture the slightly chubby seven-year-old cleaning on her knees. The Meiru that was currently humming and sweeping the kitchen was twenty-two years old, 5'4", and had long red hair that fell about halfway down her back. Looking around the new kitchen, Roll decided that maybe things had—

"Gah! This cabinet _still_ won't stay shut! I told him when he put it together that it was missing a screw, but would he listen? No!"

No, time didn't change things much.

Almost two years ago, Meiru married her childhood sweetheart, Netto. After growing up a bit and getting over his obliviousness (and a brief period of shyness), Netto had proved to be quite a dedicated boyfriend. Not wanting to wait until after college, he proposed to Meiru in their sophomore year. That following summer they had a small, happy, and very lavish (thanks to Yaito's insistence that she be both decorator and benefactor) wedding.

After the ceremony, both husband and wife agreed that a small apartment would be best. What they eventually settled on was impossibly small, but it was dirt cheap. They saved as much as they could for a year and a half with the intention of moving somewhere nicer after graduation.

When they finished college, Netto got a full-time job at SciLabs which doubled as his doctorate research, and Meiru became an assistant elementary schoolteacher until the school district had the resources to hire her full-time. Figuring that they were more income-stable and wanting to move closer to SciLabs to avoid the commute, they took the plunge and bought a small home.

Now, they were regretting this decision a little. Roll secretly agreed with them; who knew that moving into a house was so much work? Shaking her head out of memory lane, Roll decided that she should be optimistic about the situation. "It's a new house," she smiled, "of course there's going to be a few things that need fixing, but think how nice it will look when it's finished!"

"I know," moaned Meiru, "but it just seems like we've gotten nothing done, and we've already been here for two weeks!"

"Do you want me to ask Rockman to remind him?"

"No. He'll just get annoyed that I keep pestering him," Meiru frowned.

"Well…" said Roll pensively, wanting to be helpful, "try "accidentally" banging into that door tonight after dinner. If it slams against the broken frame loudly enough, it will remind him that it's still broken and you won't have to say a thing!"

Meiru laughed. "Clever, but you know he'll figure it out and blame me. He never believes me when I tell him that you're the real mastermind behind all these plots."

Finished sweeping, Meiru crouched down to brush the dust pile that had accumulated into a dustpan. "Whew. That's one less thing to do," she commented, standing back up. "This room looks so much nicer without boxes all… nngh."

She swayed suddenly, and dropped the dustpan.

"Meiru-chan!" Roll gasped. "Are you alright?"

Meiru blinked a few times. "Yes, I— oh darn."

When the dustpan fell, it twisted and fell top down, spilling its contents back onto the floor. With an irritated grunt, Meiru knelt back down to scoop it up again.

"Meiru-chan?"

"I'm fine. Just stood up too quickly."

Roll bit her lower lip. That would actually be a good excuse if this was Meiru's only recent dizzy spell. But it wasn't. This was… what, the fourth? This week? Roll mentally kicked herself for not being more observant. "Meiru… chan…" she began timidly, "are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"I just said I was fine."

She was lying. Roll knew Meiru better than any other person in the world, and even though she sounded sincere, she had responded a little too quickly to the question. "Meiru-chan…"

Meiru gave her the cold shoulder as she again (and more cautiously) stood up. After knocking out the dustpan in the trash and putting away the broom, she sighed and surveyed the room. "What's next on our list?"

Roll shook her head. Meiru was probably just tired from the stress of buying and moving into a new house. That had to be it. Meiru was a very motivated person, and nothing, not even sickness, could stand in her way if she had a goal to accomplish.

Nonetheless…

"We're ahead of schedule," Roll lied. "Why don't you plop down on the couch and rest for a minute? You've been running around all day."

Meiru gave her a suspicious look.

"Really! We're ahead! Well… technically, we're supposed to unpack your wedding china next, but the chairs for the dining room haven't arrived yet and I don't want you standing on a five-dollar-piece-of-unsafe-junk folding chair trying to put fine china into a cabinet. It's not safe for you _or_ the china."

That part at least was not a lie.

"Oh. Alright then," Meiru conceded. "Anything good on TV?"

"Dunno. Let's see."

After Meiru was settled on the couch and sufficiently distracted by daytime soap operas, Roll pulled up a small internet window. Very quietly, she searched the word "vertigo".

--

Two days, three dizzy spells, one shouting match, and one failed threat to tattle to husband later, Roll paced her PET angrily. Meiru had left over an hour ago to pick up a few things from the hardware store, and she had conveniently "forgotten" to take Roll along.

Roll smiled smugly at the sound of a key being inserted into the front door. _Two_ could play at this game…

--

The next day, the phone rang.

"Ack, Roll? Can you get that?"

Surrounded by a sea of boxes and discarded newspaper wrappings, Meiru was trapped. Despite that and the fact that Roll happily agreed to answer the phone, she still made a valiant effort to extricate herself from the mess.

Just as Roll expected, Meiru reached the phone right as she hung up with the caller.

"Shoot. Who was it?"

"Kawashima-sensei's office."

"What?" said Meiru, sounding alarmed. "Why? What did they want?"

Roll tried her best not to fidget or display any other of her nervous behaviors. Looking back, what had seemed like a good idea yesterday had only seemed good because she was mad. Now that they had apologized to one another, Roll didn't want to be responsible for starting another fight.

She took a deep breath. It was too late to go back now. "It was an automated call confirming your appointment with her at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"Appoint…? I don't remember…" Meiru suddenly gave Roll a distrustful stare. "Since when have I had a doctor's appointment tomorrow?"

"…Since yesterday?"

There was a moment of stunned silence, which unfortunately only lasted a total of ten seconds.

"Roooll!!" cried Meiru. "Why… why would you do something like this without telling me?!"

Roll bit her lower lip and looked away from the screen. "I was worried," she said in a small voice.

"Worried about _what_?" asked Meiru. "I keep telling you it's nothi—"

"No," Roll interrupted suddenly.

"What?"

"No!" she repeated, stomping a pink boot down for emphasis. "It's not nothing!_ It_ is something, and I want to find out what _it_ is! If you're not going to do something about it, I will! I care about you, and I don't like it when you hide things like this from me! What would Netto-san say if he knew about this?"

Meiru opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"He would be upset," Roll continued, now much softer, "like I am. Refusing to acknowledge this problem won't make it go away, Meiru-chan. We both love you and just want what's best for you. Please. Even it if it's nothing, I want to hear a doctor tell us that."

Meiru turned sideways, and hugged her right arm across her chest.

"I just confirmed over the phone with the doctor's that you were coming tomorrow. Can I please keep that appointment on our schedule?" Roll asked gently.

Meiru gripped the fabric of her shirt so tight that her knuckles began to turn white. "Yes… yes that's probably for the best," she said in a wavering voice. "I…"

Her left hand shot up to hover over her mouth, and Roll noted with alarm that she looked ready to cry.

"Roll, I think I'm pregnant."

--


	2. Unwanted Truths

When I first started this story three years ago (three! o0), I asked myself, "What's a young but reasonable age to be married and pregnant?" I decided 22 sounded good. Not too young, but just at the age where you finish college and it's either good timing or screws up all your career plans.

…now that I'm 22… Haha, it's not "Oh wow I picked way too young of an age, I can't imagine being married and pregnant now!", it's more of a… "Man. I don't even have a boyfriend. NO FAIR, MEIRU."

As always, please enjoy this next installment of fluff. Reviews are appreciated!

Capcom owns all of this, except the stuff I BSed to make the story work.

--

"What?!" Even though it was rude and didn't help the situation at all, Roll couldn't help but stare.

"I-I wasn't… didn't go…" Meiru choked, "I didn't go to the hardware store yesterday. I want to the pharmacy. I wandered around for an entire hour, but I couldn't bring myself to buy… to buy a test…."

"Oh Meiru-chan…" Roll exhaled, copying her Operator and putting a hand to her mouth.

"But I k-kept going by that isle, and the guy at the counter g-gave me this funny look like he knew what I wanted… I just… just couldn't do it, Roll."

"Shh, shh," Roll shushed gently. "It's alright."

"No, no it's not," gasped Meiru, starting to succumb to her tears. "I don't have a real job, Netto's killing himself working a full-time job _and_ doing PhD research, and we just spent every penny we've saved these last two years to buy this stupid house. This is the _worst_ time to get... to g-get pregnant…"

Roll moved her hand from her mouth and clenched it into a fist over her Navi icon, trying her best not to bite her lower lip. Even though she whole-heartedly agreed that this was terrible timing, reaffirming the obvious truth would only upset Meiru further. She hated to see Meiru cry. "Don't say that, don't. We don't know if you're pregnant; it could be something totally unrelated!"

Meiru began to cry in earnest, so Roll pressed on. "Think about it! When you said you didn't want to take birth control, you and I researched a bunch of other options, remember? I looked up all the statistics for you, Meiru-chan, and I checked all of that math. If you've been… erm, using everything correctly, there's like a zero chance that you're pregnant."

"Yeah… "like" zero…" Meiru sniffed. She still seemed cheered by that fact, though, and began to clumsily wipe her face clean.

"And… uh… oh!" Struck by a sudden thought, Roll dug through her achieve of financial data for grocery receipts. "Didn't we buy tampons recently? You haven't missed a period, have you?"

"I thought of that too," Meiru hiccupped. "No, I haven't missed one. My last one was really light, though… I didn't think much of it at the time, but…" Her face clouded up again.

"But you still had it, right?" Roll interjected, trying to prevent more tears. "That's got to count for… for something, right?"

Roll knew she was grasping at straws, now. When she was researching Meiru's obvious symptoms, pregnancy _had_ come up, but she'd thrown it out almost immediately because she knew Meiru was taking precautions against that. Now she was wishing that she hadn't been so quick to dismiss the idea; the only things she knew about pregnancy were what she'd seen in cliché movies, and that basically amounted to nothing. Roll decided that she should stop talking before she put her foot in her mouth.

"You know what Meiru-chan?" she admitted, trying to be realistic but gentle about it, "There is a super tiny chance that you could be, but an even bigger one that you're not. Why don't we go see Kawashima-sensei tomorrow? She can find out if you are and… well, we'll deal with the results when we get them, okay?"

Meiru choked on a silent sob and coughed.

"Shh, there's no reason to freak out until we know for sure. I'll go with you, you'll be fine… we can do this…" Roll repeated reassurances over and over like a mantra. After about ten repetitions, she wondered who it was she was trying to reassure.

--

Roll stared absent-mindedly at a poster. It was a full-size illustration of the human circulatory system, with all the major arteries and veins labeled. Roll started at the heart, and began to the read down, focusing mainly on the red arteries. She quickly committed the names of them to memory, but only because she was bored and wanted something to do. She wondered vaguely what blood vessel it was that pregnant women were supposed to have trouble with. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered Meiru's mother complaining that she wasn't allowed to lay on her… well, one of her sides when she was pregnant.

Feeling nervous again, Roll quit staring at the poster. People could complain all they wanted about waiting for hours and hours outside in a waiting room, but it was the ten minutes spent in a small, cold examination room surrounded by strange medical equipment that was truly unpleasant. Roll was suddenly glad she was a Net Navi, but instantly regretted that thought; poor Meiru looked so small sitting on the paper-covered recliner.

The heavy wooden door clicked open, and Roll saw Meiru flinch at the noise.

"Hello!" A middle-aged woman with a mop of dark curly hair and square glasses walked in, smiling ear-to-ear. She was short, too; when she shut door behind her, she had to kick her overly-long white lab coat out of the way.

Meiru inclined her head in a small bow. "Hello sensei. Thank you for seeing me," she said in an equally small voice.

"It's been a while since I saw you last. I suppose that's a good thing, hm?" Kawashima-sensei laughed, but all Meiru could do was give her a weak smile in return.

Roll thought it was funny: they'd spent ten minutes waiting for the doctor to show up, and now that she was here neither of them wanted her to be here. Roll was very glad that she'd come with Meiru; things like this were always more scary alone.

"So I have a pretty good idea why you're here—"

"You do?" Meiru asked, furrowing her brow.

"Yes," the doctor smiled, "you have a very caring and very thorough Navi. When she stopped by yesterday to make an appointment, she gave us a full list of your symptoms."

Meiru gave her PET an exasperated look. "Oh."

Roll laughed sheepishly. "I was worried!" she said simply.

"So I've got a few ideas what could be going on, and I have a few questions. First, and don't mind me asking, do you and you husband practice any sort of birth control?"

Roll saw May's face tinge pink. "W-we do… but…"

Kawashima-sensei nodded her head understandingly. "These things can happen, yes. Well, I think we should test for that first; it seems like the most obvious explanation."

If possible, Meiru shrank into an even smaller ball on the recliner.

Kawashima-sensei seemed to recognize this type of reaction. Without warning she hopped up on the recliner next to Meiru. The paper crinkled like mad as she got settled and threw an arm around her patient. "Listen," she said softly, "I've seen this a million times, and it's not as bad as you think. If you are pregnant, I've got books and books of things for you to read, advice to give you, people to refer you to… If you're not, I've got a few other things we can look at. One way or another, I promise I'll do my best to help."

Roll felt like crying. She had wanted to give Meiru a hug _all day long_ and was overjoyed that someone else had not only noticed that Meiru needed a hug, but actually _given_ her one. It was hard, sometimes, trying to calm someone down when all you had was words.

Kawashima-sensei slid off the recliner with another barrage of crinkling, and motioned for Meiru to do the same. She went to the door, reopened it, and stood aside for Meiru to walk through first. "Don't worry," she smiled, "you'll be fine."

Meiru nodded mutely, which caused Roll to feel both resentful and relieved. She had said those exact words about fifty times in the last two days, but each time it had gone in one ear and out the other.

_Oh well_, Roll thought, _maybe Meiru-chan is finally listening_.

--

_It would be cruel_, Meiru had said. _I'm not too young; I'm happily married; what right do I have to say no to this baby?_

Personal feelings on the subject aside, Roll had to agree wither her Operator's reasoning. There was no "if", only a "when". A when which, as it turned out, was scheduled for October third.

_How do they decide these things? _Roll wondered. She wished she had saved a recording of the heartbeat; that was the only thing that had seemed real about today. The tests with their various colors and printouts had meant nothing, and even when the perky young ultrasound technician exclaimed "There it is! There's your baby!", all Roll saw was a small white oval on a black triangular background.

Roll marveled at how fast the heartbeat was. It was a soft "wish-wish-wish" kind of sound, but it had also seemed... persistent, somehow. It was as though this little being clinging to life inside of Meiru was trying to say, "I am here!" The sound carried a finality that no other piece of proof could. The feeling was further cemented by the sudden proclamation of "The baby is due October third".

And so, the world had decided Meiru was going to have a baby on October third.

"..ey… Hey! Roll-chan! _Roll-chan!_"

A hand grabbed Roll by the shoulder and shook her, snapping her out of her thoughts. She jumped at the sudden touch, but relaxed when she saw that it was just Rockman, home from work. "Oh. Welcome home. I did not hear you…"

Rockman stood over her, his face pale and mouth drawn into a thin line. "Roll-chan, what's wrong?"

"Huh?" she said absently. She didn't understand why he looked so worried.

"You only play with your antennae like that when something's wrong."

Looking down, Roll noticed for the first time that she was twisting the end of her right antenna in her hands. "Oh." She wondered why she hadn't realized earlier; her antenna was really starting to hurt.

Rockman switched his weight from one foot to the other, a sign that Roll recognized as impatience. "Roll-chan, did something happen? Are you alright?"

Roll went back to staring morosely at the floor. What had happened today didn't concern him. "Nothing happened. I'm fine." Without thinking, she reached for her antenna again.

"Roooll-chan!" Rockman grabbed her forearm, pulling it away from her helmet. "You're not being very convincing!"

"I told you nothing's wrong," she said, trying to take her arm back.

"And I think you're lying to me," Rockman countered, tightening his grip.

Roll knew she was being uncooperative, but Rockman's actions were beginning to scare her. He was never this rough with her. "You're hurting me. Let go!"

"Tell me what happened first," he said sternly.

"I told you we're fine!" Roll shouted, feeling close to tears. She wasn't some small child he could scold; he had no right to pry into her business.

"We?" Rockman asked, his eyes widening. "Where is Meiru-chan? Did something happen to Meiru-chan?"

Roll was finding it increasingly hard not to panic. "L-let me go!"

"Tell me first!"

"I promised I wouldn't!" she shouted. She tried to catch Rockman off guard and twist her arm free, but his grip remained firm.

Rockman breathed a huff of annoyance. "Well now I definitely know you're hiding something. Come on, what's wrong?"

Roll had been expressly forbidden from saying anything to Rockman, because it was a proven fact that he could not keep secrets from Netto. It was a bit unfair; Roll knew he was just concerned about Meiru, like she'd been all week. Still, she had promised she wouldn't tell, and Rockman's unwillingness to let the matter drop was hurting more than her arm.

Roll shook her head and shut her eyes tightly, as though that could stave off the emotions threatening to overwhelm her. "I can't… I promised…"

"Just… on a scale from one to ten, how bad it is?" Rockman sounded as though he was trying very hard to keep his frustration in check. "Or should I go find Meiru-chan and ask her myself?"

"No!" Roll snapped. "Let me go!" She brought up her other hand to help pry the trapped one free, but Rockman intercepted it on the way. Roll surprised herself by fighting back; she had never hit Rockman before (intentionally at least), and now she wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face.

Unfortunately, he had quicker reflexes than she did. Before she could even raise her hand, he seized her wrist and brought it down in a crushing grip next to the other. "I just want to help! Why can't you tell me what's wrong?"

"We don't need your help!" Roll snarled, her panic turning into anger. "You just love to play the hero, don't you? Whenever there's a hint of danger, you and Netto-san always rush in to save the day because _obviously_ Meiru-chan and I are too weak and pathetic to do anything on our own."

Rockman was taken aback. "I never said that," he exhaled, forgetting to shut his mouth when he was done.

"But it's what you're doing! What you _always_ do," she yelled, angry tears blurring her vision. "I know that sometimes we're not as strong as you and Netto-san, and… and we can't win every fight… but that doesn't mean we're weak! We don't need to be saved from every little thing; we can handle our problems on our own, even if we lose."

Rockman said nothing to this, but stared at her, hurt. Roll felt her anger seep away at his look. She had wanted to tell Rockman that for _years_… It was the truth, even if it hurt, but now that she had admitted it to him (and to herself), all she wanted to do was cry. She had no idea why, and it infuriated her; crying would go against everything she was trying to prove. Roll lowered her eyes to the floor, trying to blink away the blurriness that threatened to overflow.

Rockman let out a long, even breath, another sign which Roll knew to mean "thinking". After a moment he mumbled, "I'm sorry. I know you can take care of yourself. You're a very strong Navi, often in ways I am not. It's just…" He chuckled and tilted his head back. "Netto-kun says I nag too much, but really I just worry too much. And when I worry, I get over protective. I can't help it."

Roll kept her eyes glued to the floor. "You can't protect me from everything."

"That doesn't mean I won't try."

Roll could perfectly envision the kind, gentle smile she _knew_ Rockman was giving her right now. On any normal day it would have made her heart skip a beat, but today it made her want to slap him again. He had just made a 180° switch from "stronger-than-you-and-angry" to his normal shy and quiet self in a matter of seconds; was she supposed to pretend that the former hadn't happened? Even if he was just trying to protect her, how did crushing her arms accomplish that?

"Roll-chan?"

Again without looking, she could picture his sympathetic eyes. "I don't want your pity. I t-told you… I'm not weak," she said, trying her best to keep her voice steady. It wasn't working; her resolve was crumbling. Frantically trying to think of something else, Roll was suddenly aware how numb her hands had gone. Feeling stupid, she nudged her arms towards Rockman and mumbled, "Hurts."

He dropped her wrists and whipped his hands up in surrender, like a thief caught red-handed. "I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean…"

Roll shook her head. "No. It's alright." Rockman was never very aware of how strong he was; he had a talent for missing details, like Netto.

Both Navis turned at the sound of door banging open. They could tell that it was the front door, and both knew that the front door was only forcefully opened by one person: Netto. Rockman glanced back at Roll, and she knew his eyes were asking if he could go find out what was happening.

She was conflicted. Would Meiru tell Netto, or had she calmed down enough to try and hide it? "I'm not even sure if _I _want to watch them. I don't know… if Meiru wants me there."

"When Netto-kun is upset," Rockman suggested softly, "I usually walk in and where he can see me, and then let him decide if he wants me there or not."

Roll frowned. Knowing Meiru, she was still curled up on the couch, crying; it was that thought that spurred her forward towards the television in the living room. "Come on," she said, beckoning with a wave for Rockman to follow, "let's go find out."

--


	3. Unwanted Advice

It was during the editing of this chapter that I decided to take the plunge and swap all the names to the Japanese versions. (I figured a stupid story deserved stupid English names, hah.) It wasn't hard; just Find and Replace and add some suffixes.

…or so I thought. "Lan" occurs in more words than just the name, and I had to actually scroll through all 52 pages of what I have to correct words like "gNettoced", "Nettoguidly", and "expNettoation". (It was actually quite amusing, so all is good.)

Are all of you enjoying this so far? I would love to hear suggestions! I do try very hard to make this nice… (I apologize for lame back stories, though.)

Capcom owns everything that is deliciously Rockman.

--

"Look, Roll!" Meiru grabbed the PET off of her hip and angled the screen down so her Navi could see the small specks of green poking through the dirt. "The flowers are coming back."

"Oh how pretty!" said Roll. "It looks like there are a lot of gardens around here… in a month this street will be full of flowers! Won't that make our walk nice?"

Meiru smiled. To save money (and because they only had one car, which Netto needed because he kept weird hours), Meiru rode the Metroline to work. One of the many reasons they chose to buy the house they did was because it was only a few blocks away from a Metroline Station. Despite that, it was not a very fun walk to make early in the morning in the dead of winter. It also hadn't helped that she had been pregnant and not known it for most of January and February, and often felt awful in the morning.

But now, things were starting to look better. Netto had taken the news… well, fairly decently, and had gone into full blown "we can do this!" mode. He was dying to share the news to every single person that they knew, and even though she had made him promise he wouldn't, it was only a matter of time before be let it drop at some inappropriate moment. Meiru, meanwhile, was just under three months pregnant and had finally stopped getting dizzy spells. The weather was getting better too; March was nearing its end and—

Nearly done with her walk home, Meiru stopped at the end of the driveway. A large, mysterious package was sitting on the front porch. It was wrapped in plain brown parcel paper, but when she got close enough to read the address, the overly-curly handwriting that adorned the top immediately identified the sender.

"Oh dear," she muttered, coming to a stop in front of it and giving Roll a nervous glance, "Mom sent a package."

Roll crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side with a frown. "Quite frankly, I'm surprised she didn't send one sooner."

"I know," Meiru agreed. "For someone who was so apathetic towards her own child, she certainly is looking forward to grandchildren."

"That's because grandparents are expected to play with grandchildren and love them for a few days… and then ignore them for a few years," Roll muttered. "Which is perfect for _her_."

"Oh don't say that, she's gotten better…"

Roll shut her mouth, resolute in her judgment.

"Well…" Meiru looked the box over a second time, "…at least she cares a little that her one and only child is having a baby."

Roll's resolve cracked, and a small smile forced its way onto her face. "I could hear her screaming on the phone two rooms away."

Meiru laughed. "I know! I didn't mean to tell her so soon, but…"

…_but I have no idea when she'll call me again._

They had always been a little distant from one another. Her mother was the head of a travel agency, and when Meiru grew old enough to stay home by herself, she returned to her job of taking tour groups all around the world. Even when she was gone for weeks, she was notoriously bad at remembering to call home. As Meiru grew older, it became apparent that this was more due to disinterest than it was to forgetfulness.

It was surprising, then, that Meiru's wedding had gone so well. It actually turned out to be a turning point for Meiru and her mother. Though Meiru hadn't completely forgiven her yet, they would call one another every once in a while just to talk. This last Sunday, Meiru broke the news about being pregnant and the response had been deafening.

"I wonder if it's a teddy bear," breathed Meiru, enchanted by the idea. "She always knew I loved that giant bear she sent me from Amero—oh!" She faltered and almost fell face forward.

"What's wrong?!" Roll gasped.

"Haha, nothing. This package is a lot heavier than I thought it was going to be! Guess it's not a teddy bear…" she chuckled. She attempted a second, more coordinated effort to pick it up.

"DON'TDON'TDON'T!!" Roll screamed suddenly.

Meiru jumped and dropped the package. Only being three inches off the ground, it made a dull thump as it hit the concrete. "What?!"

"You shouldn't be picking up heavy things!" wailed Roll. "It's not good for you!"

Meiru stared for a second, then slapped a palm to her face. "Rooooll. I'm only three months pregnant. Seriously. Stop having heart attacks about every little thing I'm doing "wrong". You're going to give _me_ a heart attack if you keep yelling at me unexpectedly."

"But… but I was reading online… that heavy objects…" Roll murmured. "I… I'm just concerned."

"I know," Meiru smiled. "Thank you for you for that, but I think I can manage one box." Giving the box a calculating stare, she chose to open the front door first. She held it open with her hip, and then carefully leaned down, scooped up the box, and swung it inside. She used the same hip to slam the door shut behind her and called out, "Roll?"

"Got it," Roll replied, setting the lock electronically.

"You know, Roll," Meiru said as she set the box down on the kitchen counter and began to hunt for scissors, "Knowing every last detail about being pregnant will only make you worry more."

A screen on the refrigerator door turned on, showing Roll wearing a confused frown. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Hm, let's see. Who spent four hours yesterday looking up mercury content in different brands of canned tuna?" said Meiru, raising an eyebrow.

"I just… You bought the Starkist, and I told you—Careful with that knife!—that Chicken of the Sea would probably…"

"Roll…" Meiru sighed. "Why does it matter how much mercury is in the tuna? The recommended limit is one can a week, and I hardly eat one can a month! And," she continued, gesturing towards the package with the kitchen knife she was now holding, "I think I can cut open a box without cutting open my hand, thank you very much."

Despite this assertion, Meiru put the knife down. "Roll, why _do_ you spend every waking hour of the day at pregnancy websites?"

Roll looked shocked. "I don't… not every…" she stumbled.

"You don't think I'm looking," she gave her Navi a Cheshire grin, "but I see you. Your PET's internet history is nothing but "" and "" and all those kinds of things."

"Well… yeah…"

"In _fact_," she continued in mock shock, "I think I even saw you typing some long involved post on a message board last night that had a background of bright yellow duckies! Couldn't read it all the way from the couch, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was tuna-related. Are you really that concerned about my fish preferences, Roll?"

Roll's mouth opened, but she looked at a loss for words.

"Alright, alright" Meiru conceded with a laugh, "I'll stop teasing you."

"It was about moving," Roll interjected suddenly. "I… I was curious how big a baby has to be before you can feel it."

"Oh," said Meiru. She paused to furrow her brow in thought. "I dunno. I'd guess like four months. I know _I_ haven't felt anything yet. But…" her gaze turned to Roll, "wouldn't any normal website have that kind of thing? Why bother with a message board?"

"Oh it was fascinating!" Roll said with an earnest smile. "A bunch of women go there to write about their experiences with children and pregnancy, and there was a whole topic devoted to fetal movement… about how they flip and roll and when they get bigger kick and punch and poke limbs out and so many different things! I just…" Roll paused, realizing how fast she was speaking, and blushed. "I just wondered what it felt like, is all. So I asked."

Meiru gave her stomach an apprehensive stare. "Mom mentioned that when she was pregnant with me, I used to kick her in the ribs all the time…" She was unable to repress a shudder at the thought. "I hope my baby doesn't do that. I think it's kind of creepy to have something moving inside of you…"

Roll laughed. "Really?"

"Really," she admitted. Truth be told, she wasn't very gung-ho about any of this pregnancy thing. Sure, she wanted children, but pregnancy was such a hassle… and she was in her first trimester, which meant she had a full six months more of fun ahead. It was only going to get worse from here, right? Hopefully Netto would still be alive at the end…

Roll was talking again; something about keeping records of movement, but Meiru wasn't listening. Why _was_ Roll so enthusiastic about this whole thing? At first Meiru had thought Roll was just trying to be cheerful to keep her spirits up, but now it seemed like something more. Like Roll was… _envious_ or something. Meiru almost snorted out loud at that thought; pregnancy was anything but fun, and unexpected ones with bleak-looking futures were even less desirable. And all of it was a completely moot point, because Navis couldn't give birth like humans did, anyway. There had to be another reason Roll was so enthusiastic, but Meiru couldn't decide what it could be.

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Meiru picked her knife back up, hoping to switch subjects. "What do you say? Let's find out what's in this box!"

"Mm!" Roll nodded.

The grand unveiling was anti-climatic.

"She…" Meiru started.

"…got you a sewing machine," Roll finished.

"But I don't sew! Why on earth…?" breathed Meiru, trying to pry one box out of a larger box.

"Look!" Roll pointed. "A card fell out."

Meiru put the sewing box down on the counter and knelt down to retrieve the pale pink envelope from the floor. She paused for a moment look at the front, which read "To my Beloved Daughter" in delicate purple cursive. Her mouth repeated the words soundlessly.

As though a momentary trance had broken, Meiru flipped the envelope over and tore it open. The carefully chosen stationary inside got bent at the corners as Meiru roughly yanked it out. With a shake she unfolded the paper and began to read.

The paper began to shake. The further Meiru read, the more the paper shook and the lower her jaw dropped. "She…"

"What's wrong, Meiru-chan?" Roll asked, worry showing clearly on her face.

"She… wants… I…"

"…Meiru-chan?"

Meiru's hand clenched, crinkling her letter. She closed her eyes and balled her fists up at her side, dropping the crushed letter to the floor. "I told her once," she said, breathing heavily through her nose in an attempt to stay calm, "that I wanted to wait a few years to have kids. She also knows that we are poor, and even though she's never said it to my face, I know she doesn't like Netto because he acts… rather childishly at times. Now _she_," Meiru ground out through clenched teeth, "thinks I'm not ready to have children because of those things and because she has "first-hand experience" and knows how hard it is to raise a child."

Roll's mouth opened in indignation. "First hand WHAT? She was never arou—"

"_And_ she says," Meiru cut off, "that even though she's really excited, she… she would…." Her eyes fluttered open, and she took a shaky breath. "Forgive me if I chose not to have it."

"WHAT?!" roared Roll. "What does she mean by that?! This isn't an "it", this is a baby; _your _baby and her first and only grandchild! How… how dare she! This "it" is three months old and has eyes, toes, fingers, a… a heartbeat… It's her grandchild and it is _alive_, how _dare_ she even suggest that!"

"Roll…"

"No! What kind of mother tells her daughter that?! She knows what you went through to make this decision and she should respect it! She is… absolutely… just…" Too furious to put it into words, Roll stomped a foot and growled.

"Oh no," Meiru said in an airy, falsely cheerful voice, "she cares. Why do you think she sent the sewing machine? She really wants me to keep the baby."

"She does?"

"Yes! But in order to be a good mother, like she admits she was not, I need to become a better housewife. Only then will my children truly love me. She hopes this sewing machine will be "a step in the right direction"."

"Cooking and cleaning don't… or sewing… ooh!" Roll growled again. "I swear, has she learned _anything_ from her mistakes with you? What right does she have to be giving advice?"

"None," Meiru replied in monotone.

Roll rubbed her forehead with her palm. "Well it's not like we can disown the woman…"

"Like _hell_ I can't," Meiru muttered under her breath.

"…so we might as well cut our losses. At the very least, we got a sewing machine out of this."

Meiru stared impassively at the sewing machine box.

"Maybe," said Roll, folding her arms, "if we can find some cheap fabric online, we could save money by making our own baby clothes. I know a website that has free sewing patterns."

Meiru continued to stare.

"Also, when she comes to visit she might be impressed and get off your back. For a while, at least. What do you think, Meiru-chan?"

Meiru exhaled deeply. With a sharp re-intake, she hoisted the sewing machine above her head and flung it across the room. "_That's what I think!"_ she bellowed. Without further ado, she stomped out of the kitchen.

--

"So… tell me again why there's a dent in this wall?" Netto ran his finger gently over the new indentation and scowled when some paint chipped loose. "We just painted this," he whined.

"I told you, I threw a sewing machine at it," Meiru growled from where she was curled up on the couch.

"But _why_ did you throw a sewing machine at it?"

"Because I don't _want_ the sewing machine."

Netto gave his wife a perplexed stare. "So you threw it at a wall? Why not throw it in the trash, like a normal person?"

"Because that's not nearly as fun," said Meiru, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Caught up in their argument, neither husband nor wife noticed their Navis shake their heads at one another and disappear.

--

"Check."

Rockman bit back a curse. Even when she was only paying about 5 attention to the game, Roll could _still_ kick his butt at chess. "Where? I don't—oh, the Bishop." He slumped down on his squat red ottoman (one of very few pieces of virtual furniture they owned) and scowled at said Bishop.

"I keep telling you," a female voice yelled from downstairs, "I can't tell them! They won't… the beginning of… don't need…" Slowly, the voice faded away.

Roll's seemingly constant frown deepened, which made Rockman's mind reemerge from muddled thoughts of chess. "What's that about?"

Roll brought her hand up to her mouth and began to absently chew on a fingertip. "Meiru-chan lost her job."

"What?! Why?"

"Well she hasn't lost it _yet_," Roll explained, waving her other hand for emphasis, "but she will when she tells them she's pregnant. It's your move."

"What? I don't…"

Roll sighed. "Meiru-chan doesn't have a full-time job, right? She's an assistant at an elementary school because that school hopes to get enough money to expand and hire new teachers in a year or two. So right now, she's not a crucial member of the staff. They're understaffed for the amount of kids they have, sure, but she's not a full-time, official employee. That's why she's afraid she won't get re-hired… with the baby coming in October, right at the beginning of the school year, the school won't want to waste money paying an extra, unnecessary staff member Maternity Leave."

"But they can't… they can't do that, right? That's discrimination!"

"Yes," Roll agreed, her voice muffled by chewing. "But they can very easily say they don't have the money to re-hire her, so it would be hard to argue that it's pregnancy discrimination. And," she continued, chewing double-time, "even if we did argue it, it would take months to do, at which point the school year would already be started and Meiru-chan will be having her baby and… Well, it'd be too late by then."

"So…," Rockman tailed off, feeling uncertain. When Meiru first told Netto she was pregnant, he had helped Netto do some basic calculations to prove to Meiru that having this baby would not cause them complete financial ruin. Of course, they'd been counting on Meiru getting some sort of paid Maternity Leave, so this news changed that math quite a bit. "So Meiru-chan… will just take a year off from working, then?"

"You know," Roll chewed softly, "I'm pretty sure Meiru wants to be a stay-at-home mother… but that's not really feasible at this point, is it?"

"I don't know," Rockman mused. He paused to lean over the chess board and gently tugged Roll's hand away from her mouth. She had the oddest nervous habits. "If that's what she really wants, I'm sure we could work out… something."

"_Something"… that's reassuring,_ he thought glumly. He glanced at the Bishop which posed a silent, diagonal threat to his King. His mind was drawing a blank on solutions; he didn't know what "something" was and didn't know how to save his doomed King. It was a depressing parallel.

"Something," Roll repeated. Her hands clenched in her lap. "Always something. How…?"

"How what?"

To his surprise, Roll snapped at him. "How can you be so optimistic about everything? Why do you always assume things will just work out? They don't! Real life doesn't work like that!"

"I don't assu—"

"Yes you do! You and Netto rush headfirst into everything and expect things to end up perfectly. You don't think things ahead, don't plan for anything… What happens if something goes wrong? What then? You have no plan B!"

"I think thing—"

"Someday," Roll said coldly, looking him straight in the eye, "you're going to lose. Someday you won't get in that lucky shot, someone won't come to the rescue, or… or someone will sneak up on you, I don't know, but someday…" Roll paused. In a much softer voice she finished, "One day, you won't come home."

Rockman was speechless.

"So that is why," Roll mumbled, returning her gaze to her lap, "I can't be optimistic like you."

It took Rockman a full minute to find his voice. "I know I don't think through every detail like you do, but that doesn't mean I'm careless. Netto-kun and I… we don't always have a set goal in mind, but we try our best to do what we think is right. We don't plan, we just… do. It's not optimism; it's just plain hard work." Rockman furrowed his brow in confusion. "What does any of this have to do with Meiru-chan?"

"Apart…" Roll swallowed hard, "Apart from the obvious meaning, it was also a metaphor. You two think that when the baby comes, you'll just "do what needs to be done" and it will work. You think that we should just continue our lives like nothing is changing… but in six months everything will be different, and you refuse to plan for the very likely event of failure!"

"Well it certainly won't be easy," Rockman conceded, "but I have faith in this family. Netto-kun can work more hours so Meiru-chan can stay home and not stress out trying to fight the school. Money will be tight, but... we can just put less in our savings, right? And plus, if Netto-kun works more then he'll get his PhD sooner and be able to get a real job, one we can live off of…"

Roll brought up a finger to chew on again. "So he's going to become his father? He's going to stay at SciLabs all day and never get to know his child?"

"That… Papa had a reason…" Rockman took offense to that statement, despite it being partially true. He reached over and tugged her hand away a second time, a little more forcefully than he intended. "Netto-kun will only stay as long as he needs to. Maybe when the baby gets a little bigger Meiru-chan will be willing to work part-time again, and they could switch off… or Mama could baby-sit… or… Trust me Roll-chan, Netto-kun and I will work out something."

"You're doing it again," Roll commented, her voice hard.

"Doing what?"

Roll sat up a little straighter and folded her hands in her lap, her posture making her look the very definition of prim. "Playing the hero! _You and Netto-kun_ will work more hours, _you and Netto-kun_ will think of something, while Meiru-chan and I sit around and watch!"

"Oh," he faltered. "I-I didn't mean to."

"I know you don't," Roll mumbled, "but…"

She looked depressed, and Rockman felt his face droop to mirror hers. "I'm sorry. We're just trying to look out for Meiru-chan and the baby, and if that means we get a little over-protective… well that's a good thing, isn't it? Netto-kun wants to take care of his wife, isn't that normal?"

"It is normal, and I'm very glad that he is willing to take on such a responsibility! I have great respect for what you two are trying to do," Roll nodded softly.

Her statement felt unfinished. "But…?" he asked.

Roll bit her lip and looked down into her lap yet again. She was obviously upset, and for some reason wasn't going to tell him why.

"Roll-chan…"

Silence.

"Roll-chan?"

Again, nothing. Rockman leaned bodily across the chessboard, knocking pieces right and left. Many of them fell or rolled off of the board and onto the grid-patterned floor. "Roll-chan," he said over the noise, putting a hand gently over her folded ones, "what's wrong?"

Roll watched a pawn still teetering on the edge of the board. "Our game…"

Rockman gave her a stern frown. "I don't care about the game; I care about you. What is wrong?"

She blushed at that statement and managed to look depressed at the same time, an odd feat. "I don't know. You… you and Netto-san both work, Meiru-chan's working and dealing with the school and being pregnant… and I'm doing nothing."

"What?" Rockman frowned, this time in confusion. "You do things."

"I plan the grocery list. I organize Meiru-chan's schedule. I do a bunch of little odds and ends, but none of it really helps Meiru-chan in any important way."

"Sure it do—"

"So when you save that you'll take care of everything, that I shouldn't worry myself… it makes me feel completely useless."

"O-oh. I…" Rockman wasn't sure if he should apologize; it was kind of meaningless, just saying it. "I really… am not trying to do that."

But intentionally or not, he was. As he tried to think of the chain of events that led up to this and wondered how he had missed so many obvious clues, Roll stood up.

"Rockman… it's nothing. I'm fine."

"But…"

"I can't hear Meiru-chan or Netto-san anymore," she said, visibly flustered. "I think they've stopped fighting. I want to go check on Meiru-chan. Can we finish this game later?" Without waiting for an answer, she began to hastily scoop up Chess pieces.

Apparently she didn't want to talk about it. "Oh… okay, if you want. But I think you won."

Roll gave a noncommittal "Mm" and crouched to collect pieces from the floor.

"Oh, don't," he said, shooing her away and stooping to get them himself. "I knocked them over, so…"

There was a brief look of hurt on Roll's face, and Rockman almost slapped himself in the forehead; he was doing it _again_. "I didn't mean I don't want you to help clean up, I just feel bad because I was the one who made—"

He was interrupted by the sound of her dumping the pieces in her arms on the board in a cluttered pile. "It's alright, I don't mind. It's getting late… I'm going to find Meiru-chan, and then I think I'll go to sleep. Goodnight."

Her icy tone indicated that she would be sleeping in her PET, and would probably block the entrance to stop him from following. She turned on her heel and began to walk away. Rockman estimated that he had 15 seconds before she reached the glowing portal between the bedroom computer (where they were) and the television in the living room (where Meiru was).

He scrambled. "Roll-chan, I…" Again, sorry wasn't enough. She knew he was sorry, but that didn't change what he was doing. "I don't mean…" Saying it was unintentional was worse; it implied that his natural reaction was to assume she couldn't do things by herself. "Roll-chan…"

…fifteen seconds wasn't enough time to think of something to make the situation magically all better, and so in the end Rockman settled for a soft, "Goodnight."

--


	4. What Really Matters

This is one of the really old chapters. But I don't write chronologically… I write whatever I feel like writing. This is starting to bite me in the butt; the pieces don't always match up when I fill in the gaps. It turned out that I deleted every single word of this chapter except the first two paragraphs!

…and of course added about eleven more pages, which I hope is okay. ) I like this one, it ended up so cute!

Capcom loves you, because they own Rockman.

--

Netto's office was quiet, warm, and sunny. The usual hums and whirs of computer fans and air conditioners had been silenced at exactly 2:00 pm by a power outage.

A bright beam of sunlight was shining through the blinds and zebra-striping the carpet. Rockman was sitting in his PET on Netto's desk, and Netto was rocking back on two legs of his chair with his feet propped up next to the PET. They had been sitting like this in a catatonic daze for about twenty minutes, both watching dust motes swirl languidly through rays of sun. It was a lazy Thursday afternoon, lazy to the point where Rockman wasn't even bothering to point out the dangers of chair-tipping to Netto.

"Mmmm." Netto stretched out contentedly. "Wonder what Meiru's up to."

"Teaching," was Rockman's short reply.

"Yeah."

The silenced resumed.

Rockman felt a little guilty about their current behavior; they, after all, had caused the power outage. In the end though, after a thorough scolding from the safety department, they had been unable to help repair the electrical grid and were told to wait for it to come back online like everyone else. Waiting was rapidly becoming boring, and Rockman wondered how long Netto could resist the temptation of leaving work early.

"It's just…" Netto broke the silence, "I hope she's feeling alright and all that."

"I'm sure she's fine, Roll-chan told me she hasn't been feeling as sick lately," Rockman reassured his Operator. "She's in her… uh…"

"Second trimester, yeah."

Rockman smiled. "I'm impressed you remembered that."

Netto scoffed at him. "I pay attention sometimes! And besides," he continued, his face darkening, "Meiru doesn't listen very well when she's nervous… That's why I go to all of her doctor's appointments with her."

"Oh." So that was why! When they'd gone to Meiru's four-month checkup last week, Rockman had actually been a little miffed because Netto (most likely intentionally) left him at work with a huge pile of paperwork to (electronically) sort through. Now he, despite Netto dumping long-overdue work on him, was a little ashamed for having felt that way.

Rockman wasn't overly close to Meiru and knew practically nothing about her pregnancy; what he did know always came from Roll. She was very on top of every aspect of Meiru's health and well-being. He, being so busy with research, was content to let to her control that half of their life, and she in turn seemed happy with that arrangement. It gave her things to do, at any rate.

Netto's face hadn't changed its sour expression.

"Netto-kun…?"

"Huh?" The cloudy look passed. "Oh. Yeah. I'm fine."

Rockman gave his Operator a shrewd look. "Are you nervous?"

"Of course I am!" Netto exclaimed, surprising him. "But I can't let Meiru see that, can I?"

_So I was right,_ Rockman thought. Netto had been very… enthusiastic about having a baby, so much so that Rockman had been wondering if some of it was a front to hide his true feelings.

"You know," he admonished nonetheless, "your overly up-beat attitude has been driving Meiru-chan a little crazy, or so Roll-chan tells me."

Netto gave a hearty laugh. "Better crazy than angry! I can deal with crazy."

"Netto-kun…"

"Seriously though, when do you and I ever plan things out one-hundred percent? There are too many unknowns here to do that; we _can't_ plan for every outcome! When the time comes, we'll deal with things as needed. It's that simple. I've tried telling Meiru that, but…"

"I tried to convince Roll-chan of the same thing not too long ago!" Rockman nodded in agreement. "She said that attitude will be the death of us someday."

"Aah, women… they don't understand." There was a brief pause as Netto's face clouded back up. "Rockman… I know… I know I can make this baby thing work out, but I wonder… at what cost?"

"Hm?"

"I'll become Papa. I don't want that."

"Oh." When Roll had said it, Rockman was offended. As time went by, however, it was starting to turn into a very likely outcome. He wasn't sure what to say. What _was_ there to say? Even if they tried their best to complete their research, it would still be almost five years before Netto got a real job and could work normal hours. Missing out on five years of his baby's life... Netto had every right to be worried.

"But… even then," Netto continued, "I always had you, right? So I turned out okay."

Rockman gave him a self-conscious half-smile. "I wouldn't say that was all my doing…"

Netto sighed in a wistful manner. "I want to make a Navi for my child, like Papa made you for me. I don't think I will, though; I don't have the time to spend on a pet project and…" It sounded as though he was struggling to find the right words. "Papa had a lot of reasons to make you. You are… unique, in more ways than one. Because of that, you and I share a bond that no one else has ever had. I don't think I could re-create that feeling by making an ordinary Navi. I want him to mean something, like you do to me."

"I'm… touched," Rockman managed to stutter at last. "But… I never replaced Papa, did I?"

"No. You didn't change the fact that he was never there."

Rockman hummed a small note of agreement. He missed the days where all of his problems could be solved by a Charge Shot. Things had gotten so much more complicated as Netto grew older, and solutions less clear. In fact, Roll was still a little miffed at him, and it had been over a month since that last argument. It was her own fault, though; she switched the topic every time he tried to talk about it.

"Oh! Hey! Speaking of a new Navi… well, I have… err, I want your advice." It was a lame tactic to switch topics, but he knew this one would cheer Netto up. "Roll-chan has been acting funny lately."

"Oh? Funny how?" One of Netto's eyebrows raised, and Rockman felt the usual sense of dread well up in his chest.

Netto had achieved every milestone in his relationship with Meiru due solely to Rockman's support and incessant teasing. Netto, normally a very loud, outgoing person, grew very shy around Meiru during his teenage years. Had it not been for Rockman's constant pestering, he and his wife would probably not be where they were today. Rockman always knew Netto would get him back for it some day; why it was now and why it involved teasing him about Roll, he had no idea. They had become rather good at working as a team over the last few years (mostly because they lived together), but they didn't do anything different or act and differently than before… did they? And it if they did, did it really warrant such a barrage of teasing?

"Netto-kun…"

Netto put a hand over his heart in mock offence. "Whaaat? I haven't done anything!"

There was still a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Rockman eyed him nervously, but chose to continue.

"When you and Meiru-chan got married, Roll-chan did most of the planning. Did you know that? She's very organized. More than once, when I tried to help her with your side of the family's affairs, she… Hm. She would sometimes make off-hand comments like, 'Meiru-chan picked out blue ribbons, but don't you think green is nicer?' or 'I would've chosen a cake with off-white frosting, like an ivory color'… things like that."

"Doesn't every girl dream of her own fairytale wedding?" Netto yawned, stretching again.

"Exactly! I think she was jealous of Meiru-chan, just a little bit."

Netto nodded sagely. "And so she should be. You missed a fine opportunity to make a move, you know. You were alone with her a lot back then weren't you? You still are, come to think of it." He gave an exaggerated sigh. "Poor Roll-chan!"

Rockman was at a complete loss for words.

_I should've just let him stay depressed_.

"How are you and Roll, by the way?"

"W-what do you mean?"

Netto gave him a surprisingly dead serious look. "I guess what I'm asking is… you and Roll are pretty close now, aren't you?"

There had to be a color for the shade of red his face went. Had to be, but Rockman felt that he wasn't qualified to name it, seeing as he couldn't actually see his own face. "I… W-what kind of question is that?!"

"A pretty simple one," Netto deadpanned. "Answer it."

"I-I don't know! We're… we're good friends, I mean, we live together…" Netto was still giving him the evil eye, and he quailed a little under it. "I guess…we… have an understanding."

"Pfft!" Netto failed to stifle a chuckle. "An "understanding"? Rockman, let me give you some advice: women like commitment."

"C-com… mit…,"Gaping like a fish (a beet red one at that), Rockman was unable to think of a reply.

Netto laughed at the reaction his advice got. The motion shook his chair, which unbalanced and began to careen backwards. Netto made a surprised "Eep!" and windmilled his arms. After a precarious wobble, he managed to land his chair forward on all fours with a loud "thump!"

Rockman wanted to say, _I warned you!,_ but remembered that he'd actually resisted saying it for once in his life.

Netto sat up and made a face as he straightened out his back. "Whew! In all honesty, though, I know what you wanted to say. Roll's doing it again, isn't she? Meiru mentioned something about her acting kind of jealous."

"I don't know if that's entirely it," Rockman mumbled. "But… I'm worried."

"When are you not?" Lan muttered under his breath.

Rockman heard it anyway. "Netto-kun!"

"Oh don't worry, I'm sure she's fine. It's strange, but not unheard of," said Netto. "Jasmine's Navi, um, Medi? Right? She got a baby."

"What?!"

"Well yeah, you know, a baby Navi."

"…what?"

Netto gave him a confused frown. "You've never heard of that? New… N-something-hakase on the fourth floor makes them."

If Netto couldn't even remember the guy's name, it was no surprise that Rockman hadn't heard of him. Wordlessly, he shook his head.

"There are two ways to get a fully-customizable Navi," Netto explained. "You can pay a lot of money and wait two years for one to be made, or wait half the time, spend a fourth of the money, and get a Navi that has the mentality and looks of a baby. It takes about five years for it to grow to full size, so it takes a different kind of investment, but a lot of people are saying it creates a better, more personable Navi. It learns by being raised, not by being programmed. That's why Jasmine wanted one. She asked me if I knew Whats-his-face, but I told her to ask Enzan. IPC produces them."

"IPC makes them?! How do I not know this??" Rockman stuttered. Enzan… there was a name he hadn't heard in a while.

"It's a niche market," said Netto. "Not many people do, yet. It's small scale production."

Rockman tried to picture Medi with a baby. Surprisingly, it wasn't very hard to do. "So Medi… is raising one of these babies?"

"Yeah. Jasmine sent me a picture of him as a thank you for getting her in contact with the right people."

"Him? I… I never saw that!" Rockman said, surprised. He controlled most of Netto's e-mail; how had he missed that?

"You wouldn't have," Netto shrugged. "Jasmine likes to handwrite her letters." He opened a desk drawer and rummaged through it. After a minute, he shut it and tried the second drawer down. It yielded no results as well, and he shut it with another shrug. "Forgot where I put it, but he was cute. Looked a lot like Medi; had the same Navi icon, anyway. They probably used a good chunk of her code to make him."

"But why would Jasmine need another Navi?" Rockman mused out loud. "She doesn't have children, does she?"

"No, but she plans to in a couple of years. She's married, right? And Medi wanted to do it too, I think. They're just getting the Navi ready in advance."

"Huh."

"So there you go!" Netto said cheerfully. "If Roll wants to play house, let her play house! I can probably find what's-his-name and get a discount, too!"

Rockman opened his mouth to object, but stopped, not having an actual objection to voice.

"What do you think? Roll will get her baby, and my baby will have a Navi! Two birds, one stone, right? Right?"

"I-I guess so…" He still had a vague feeling of dislike, though; maybe it was the casual way Netto had suggested it? This wasn't the kind of thing you just said yes or no to. It required more thought than that.

"It's perfect! The Navi will be ready when my baby is five; we can give it to him for his birthday, like you were to me! Wouldn't that be the best? Let's go home and ask Roll right now!"

Rockman snapped back to the present. "What? We can't just leave, Netto-kun!"

"Suuure we can! It's not like we're doing anything; we _can't_ do anything without po—"

The world proved once again that it hated Hikari Netto; the power came back on.

Netto blinked up at the re-awakened fluorescent lights humming in the ceiling. "Oh, you've _got_ to be kidding me…"

"Haha, no good; back to work!"

--

Netto burst through the front door with his usual gusto. And, like usual, had to waste a moment prying his key out of the doorknob because of said gusto.

_Such a creature of habit,_ Rockman chucked quietly to himself. He had to admit, though, it was nice to come home after such a long day of work. He stretched his arms out contentedly._ And now, even though she had to have heard the door…I hope she wasn't sleeping…_

"Roooooooll!"

Rockman failed to keep his response internal. "Hwha? Why wo—" Struck by a sudden thought, he growled and tried his best not to blush. "Oh no you're not… Gah, I _told_ you, it's noth—"

Meiru wandered out into the living room, dressed in a pair of cherry-patterned pajamas. "Roll? My name's not Roll."

Netto gave his wife a one-armed hug and a brief kiss. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

"No, I was reading my book."

"My name is Roll," came a small voice from the television monitor. The screen flickered to life, and Roll waved from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing chess. She pushed the board away and stood up. "Do you need something?"

Rockman said "No!" at the exact time Netto said "Yes", which made both women raise their eyebrows.

"Roll, can you…" Netto clamped his hand over the PET's speaker to muffle Rockman's protesting. "I'm going to sleep, but you should bug Rockman. He has issues."

"I do not have _issues_," Rockman scowled, yelling to be heard over Netto's hand.

Netto ignored him, and plopped the PET down on the coffee table with an unsympathetic, "Goodnight. You'd better be fixed tomorrow, or I won't take you to work." As he left the living room, he flipped the lights off. Roll followed suit a second later by turning off the television, and the room went completely dark.

Rockman knew Roll would be waiting for him; she always waited for him to get home, and now she had another reason to expect him. He debated for a moment if he should just stay where he was; Roll was a very polite Navi, and rarely entered his PET without permission or a good reason. _No_, he sighed, that wouldn't work. She was suspicious now, and if he stayed holed up in his PET that would only make her more suspicious.

"Welcome home!" Roll smiled softly as he appeared in the house's server in a shower of pixels. Her smile was not enough to hide the underlying worry, but she continued with their usual routine nonetheless. "How was your day?"

Rockman was surprised that she had resisted the temptation of immediately asking what was wrong. Hoping to distract her, he played along. "Long! I kept wishing I had brought you with me today, Roll-chan."

Roll made a little peep of shock. "What?"

"Oh, I made a very stupid mistake. I've been working of a long piece of coding for one of our projects, and I finally got it finished today after about a week of work. I checked it over for mistakes before I handed it off to Netto-kun, but… Well, I'm not as good as you are at scanning data."

Roll lifted a hand to lightly brush one of her antennae, the source of her amazing scanning prowess. "Are you alright? What went wrong?"

"I forgot a semi-colon, and two lines got smashed together. The result was a power surge that took out an entire fourth of SciLab's electrical grid."

"You're kidding!" Roll shouted, aghast.

"Nope," Rockman laughed.

"Did anyone get hurt?" she gasped, clearly not finding it as funny as he did.

"Nope," he repeated. "We lucked out, actually. A few instruments went out of calibration around the building, but everything rebooted fine. The only major loss was my program. A good chunk of it got loss in the mess." His explanation wasn't exactly the truth, but it wasn't a lie either; he was just omitting the more dangerous aspects.

"Thank goodness," Roll sighed, putting her hand over her Navi icon and breathing a sigh of relief. "Only you and Netto-san could turn something so small into such a disaster."

"I know," Rockman lamented, "and it was _my_ fault! Usually Netto-kun is the one who screws up."

Roll put a fist to her mouth to hide her giggling. "Nobody is perfect. I'm sorry about your program, though. If you want help rewriting it…?"

It was a strange program; not the kind of thing Roll would know how to write. "If I ever get around to rewriting it, I'll be sure to let you proof-read it for typos! Though…" he tiled his head to the side with another frown, "I'm not sure SciLabs will let us repeat today's experiment…"

"For good reason," Roll nodded in amusement.

"So what did you do today?" he asked, deciding to switch gears.

"Nothing as exciting as you!" Roll smiled, but the sudden complete lack of enthusiasm in her voice told a different story. "Meiru-chan didn't have school today, so she spent the morning making cute nametags for her students. In the afternoon she vacuumed the living room and read some… then we watched a little television while Meiru-chan made dinner… You know, the usual."

"So…" Rockman said slowly, "what did _you_ do?"

Roll waved a hand dismissively. "Browsed the internet. Slept. You know, the usual."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asked. "I have my busy days, and I have my slow days. It can't be helped."

Was this what she meant about feeling useless? Rockman couldn't recall the last time he'd had a day completely to himself, but he imaged that doing nothing but playing chess and sleeping would drive him crazy after a while too. Not knowing how to respond, he turned his eyes to the floor. His right hand twitched; stuck by a sudden realization, he clenched it into a fist. Roll wanted something to do. Roll was good at scanning. He, on the other hand (quite literally), needed to do a scan and needed the free time to do it.

"Roll-chan!"

Roll jumped a little. "Yes?"

"I know what Netto… I mean, about what Netto-kun was saying earlier. I need your help!" Why hadn't he figured it out sooner? Netto wasn't just trying to embarrass him in front of her; Roll was perfect for this job!

"I'll… try my best?" she said tentatively.

Rockman held up his right hand and spread his fingers out, his palm facing her. "Watch." He wiggled his fingers one by one. When he got to the pinkie finger, he only managed to wiggle it once before it got fuzzy and began to blink in and out of sight.

Roll gasped. "What the…?!"

"I know!" Rockman agreed, exasperated. "And when I do it long enough," he stopped, and involuntarily shuddered, "I get this strange feeling like… like I need to sneeze." Unable to repress another shudder, he rubbed at his nose furiously with his left hand.

"Sneeze? But… you _can't_ sneeze."

"I am fully aware of that," he sniffled, "but that's what it feels like!"

"Is it a virus?" Roll asked, quickly becoming alarmed. "Has anything else been happening? Here, sit down, can I check?"

"No, it's not anything as bad as that," he reassured. "Netto-kun's convinced it's a virus, but I've checked a dozen times. I think…" Looking at Roll's anxious face, he felt a small hesitation. "Netto-kun's project at work— his research— has required a lot of coding to work in tandem with my core programming."

Roll's mouth fell open, and Rockman offered her a sheepish smile. "And so… I think… maybe a small piece of something I've written has integrated itself somewhere in my core files?"

"What?!" Roll all but shouted. "Rockman, that's serious! You don't know what it could be affecting!"

"So far only my right hand and my nose," he chuckled, ignoring Roll's sudden glare.

"Rockman!"

"It's not like I'm modifying my core program!" he defended. "It's not like Soul Unison, where I was actually combining things together… do you know how dangerous that can be?"

"Rockman, this isn't about that. Don't change the subject."

It was kind of hypocritical for her to say that; switching topics was one o f her most common defenses. "I'm just saying… It's not as bad as you think. I've run a lot of little diagnostics, and nothing has come up."

"But you haven't done a full system scan…" Roll correctly inferred, bringing a palm to her forehead. For some reason, she looked exasperated.

_Strange. I thought giving her something to do would cheer her up._

"Roll-chan, I am not kidding when I say my file size is _huge_. If there were a competition for this kind of thing, I would definitely be in the top five."

"I should think so," Roll muttered. "Hikari-hakase spent five years making you, didn't he?"

"Mm!" Rockman nodded. "So I really haven't had the time to do a full system scan."

Roll sighed. "Alright then. I can help. How long has this been going on?"

"Er," he looked to the ceiling for inspiration. "Only… only about a week, I think."

Roll gasped, which brought his attention back to her. She looked shocked.

"What?"

"Rockman." Roll's eyes narrowed into dangerous tiny slits. "When you program, how do you type?"

"With… with a small command window and touch panel?"

"Which looks like an ordinary screen with "qwerty" keyboard, right?" She put her hands on her hips, like she was accusing him of some terrible crime.

"Well… yeah."

"Final question: What finger do you push the semi-colon key with?"

"With my rig—"

A prickly wave of shock washed down his body. He typed… with his right pinkie. His right pinkie which tended to fade out of existence when he wiggled it, like when he was _typing._

"Oh… oh you've got…" He was dizzy. His hand had been acting up for a week; he'd been writing this program for a week. The timing was perfect. "No way. It can't be… I didn't seriously… That's such an easy mistake to make, just a semi-colon…"

Roll reached out to lay a hand gently on his shoulder. "I told you," she admonished, "little things can make a difference."

Rockman shook her hand off, suddenly furious with himself. "You don't understand… Netto-kun was in the room with me, and… there were sparks everywhere and… and the ceiling lights all blew out and the glass just…" Though she tried to cover it with a sympathetic frown, Rockman caught Roll's brief look of horror. "I hid this from him! I hid it and it… Roll-chan, I could have… he…"

"You couldn't have known that one tiny mistake would lead to this."

"But I should've taken that possibility into account!" Unable to stand still in his irritation, he paced back and forth. "It's like you've been trying to tell me, when I rush into things and don't think about them… What if I had missed another semi-colon? What if I hadn't… I mean, the first thing I did was shut everything off and isolate the closest generator so the whole building wouldn't loose power, but…" He stopped. "Roll-chan… today could've been the day I didn't come home."

Without warning, a pair of small pink arms wrapped around his waist from behind. He felt Roll's forehead thunk down against his shoulder. "But you did."

"But I coul—"

"You came home," Roll interrupted loudly. "That's all that matters."

Rockman stood stock still, trying to focus on he feel of her arms and not on the terrifying thoughts churning through his mind. True, he really hadn't been the one at danger today, but Netto sure had been… If Netto… couldn't come home because of him…

"Rockman," Roll said slowly, "I am… sorry I yelled at you. I've been foolish. There is no way to plan for every outcome. It's impossible. Sometimes, it is better to just _do_ things, even if you don't know what will happen. And when you screw up, because inevitably you will sometimes, so long as you can contain the damage and learn from your mistakes, it was worth trying to do. I understand that now."

"Roll-chan…"

"Today," Roll continued, "you did just that. You learned something valuable, and managed to fix your mistake before anybody got hurt. I am very proud of you."

Rockman wouldn't call today an accomplishment; if anything, he'd call it a contained failure. He was touched by Roll's vote of confidence, but that didn't make it any less of a failure. When he wasn't careful, he wasn't just hurting himself anymore… he had an entire family to think of now.

Unable to or (more likely) unwilling to put these thoughts into words, he managed to chuckle weakly. Frying a fourth of SciLab's electrical grid with a single skipped semi-colon… that had to be a new record. And what more, just when he agreed with Roll about thinking things through, she told him he should do the opposite.

"Roll-chan, how did we end up switching sides?" He put his arms over Roll's, holding them in place.

"Dunno," she mumbled into his hair. "Does it matter?"

"No."

They stood like that, neither moving an inch, until Rockman lost all sense of time. He knew it had to be getting pretty early in the morning; he was practically dead on his feet from working so many hours today. Despite that, he couldn't bring himself to let go of Roll. He was so tired it felt like she was holding him up, and at the same time was still kind of in a dizzy denial which made it feel like she was keeping him grounded.

"Rockman," Roll said softly, "if you grant me access to your core programming, I can do a full system scan for you."

Papa was the only person who had ever seen his core programming; he'd more than seen it, he'd written it. Netto had never asked to see it, because there'd never been a reason to. But if Netto did ask… Rockman had a feeling he would say no; letting Netto see what made him _him_ would… ruin the illusion of who Netto thought he was.

"Rockman?"

For some reason, though, he didn't mind if Roll saw it. "I think… I can trust Roll-chan not to share my secrets to the world, right?" he smiled.

"Mm!" she agreed.

Rockman followed her instructions, and a few seconds later he was lying on the floor with her sitting adjacent to him. Her antennae uncurled and lowered down to rest gently on his Navi icon. Roll shut her eyes, and her antennae began to glow softly.

"Can you get in? Is any security blocking you?"

"No," she mumbled. "Mm. You weren't kidding, you _are_ big."

Rockman blushed, but wasn't sure why. "You don't have to stay up all night doing this, Roll-chan."

"No, it's alright. I slept most of today anyway…"

"Oh," he said. "Alright." He watched for work for a minute; she had a very serene look on her face. "Hey… Roll-chan?"

"Mm?" she hummed, cracking open one eye to smile at him.

"Thank you."

"Mmn."

It was very quiet after that. Rockman breathed a deep sigh and closed his eyes, contemplating sleep… and Roll.

Once, a few years ago, Roll had asked him to just call her "Roll". She said he didn't need the chan; though they hadn't grown up physically like their Operators, there was no denying that they had grown up.

Rockman had flat out refused; his exact words had been, "But Roll-chan is Roll-chan!" It was strange to call her anything else, and somehow more strange that she had even asked in the first place. When did she change so much? As bizarre as it felt to admit it, he almost missed her joyous yells of "Rockmaaan!" that heralded an imminent hug. She no longer clung to him, no longer hung on his every word… True, they lived together and she saw him a lot more often, so there was no need to jump on him every day, but… Somehow, Roll had grown up and he had missed it.

Oh, she still showed her affection in little ways… For instance, when he came home. No matter how late, Roll was always waiting in the exact same spot with a big smile and a "Welcome home!" And then, no matter how late, she would ask how his day was, briefly tell him about hers, and shoo him off to bed. She would get up at the same time he did too, so she could say goodbye and wish him a nice day at work. It had become such a habit for the two of them that it if it didn't happen, it meant something was wrong.

It was a very housewife-y thing to do, but Rockman found it endearing. He was sure that if they were human, she would make him super elaborate bento lunches to take to work, too. That was just the kind of woman she was; she put her heart into everything she did. Only… it was more controlled now. Roll had a lot more confidence in herself; she could hug him, she could yell at him, she was full of kind (and not so kind) advice, she could do all sorts of things without the slightest hesitation… she had grown up! They really were equals now, and Rockman felt bad for not treating her like one.

He wasn't better than her, and by no means was he stronger; she was the one who fixed a lot of his mistakes, and she had a knack for knowing just what to say to make him feel better, like today. All the same… If something bad happened, it was his natural reaction to fix it himself. Not because he was better, but because… more so than anything in the world, he wanted to protect Roll. It didn't matter how upset she got or how useless she felt; she was safe, and that was what mattered.

But today, his perspective had changed. Keeping her safe and keeping her happy also meant that _he_ had to be safe. He supposed that was how it was with Netto; one without the other just wouldn't do.

Netto asked him how he felt about Roll; he still couldn't answer. And in the end, he didn't need to. Roll was important to him; _how_ she was important wasn't crucial to that truth.

Satisfied with that conclusion, Rockman let himself drift off to sleep.

--


	5. Dreams and Memories

Oh Rockman, you didn't know about baby Navis because I couldn't think of a good way to work their description into casual conversation. p Also, you can assume Roll fixed him.

This one's also an old chapter (you can tell 'cause it's short), but surprisingly it stayed mostly intact. Huzzah!

Rockman Capcom

Likes reviews Me

(Seriously, about 1 out of every 50 people who read this reviews. Even just an anonymous "yay" or "boo!" would make my day, people.)

--

When the doorbell rang, Roll asked Meiru to see who it was because she was quite literally elbow deep in grocery ads, planning this week's shopping.

When Meiru screamed, Roll regretted this decision. Dropping everything, she raced to the monitor right next to the front closet and simultaneously dialed the first few numbers of the Police Office on the phone.

"MAY—"

"I don't _care_ if it's research, you shouldn't surprise your_ wife_ like that and _especially_ not your _pregnant_ wife, do you _want_ me to have a miscarriage you mindless, _stupid_…"

Meiru was ranting at Netto, and with every emphasized word she was swatting him over the head with… a plastic stick? Netto in turn was both laughing and cowering from his wife, while Rockman shook his head in amusement from the still-open doorway.

Confused but glad it wasn't robbers, Roll hung up the phone.

Netto yelped as a good swat nipped him painfully on the ear. "Honey, I thought you liked flowers!"

"Flowers?! _This isn't about the flowers!!_" Meiru screeched, starting to swat double-time.

Flowers? Scanning the room, Roll realized she had completely missed the large bouquet of baby pink carnations sitting on an end table. Suddenly, the plastic stick in Meiru's hand made sense; rather than beat her husband with the flowers and ruin them, she had just taken out the plastic stake which served as a cardholder to use as a weapon. Roll couldn't help but laugh at her Operator's ingenuity.

"Gyaah! Rockman! Apologize to her!" shouted Netto, backing into a corner and doing his best to cover his head.

"This was _your _bad idea, Netto-kun," Rockman sighed.

Roll giggled, and turned to ask what... exactly… She froze. Rockman's voice had come from her left, but… he wasn't standing to her left. Very slowly, she turned her gaze outside of the internet.

Rockman was standing in the doorway— in the _real _world— staring at her with a creepy "I've-been-watching-you" smile on his face.

Roll screamed about three times louder than Meiru had.

"Shh! It's okay, it's okay!" Rockman panicked, flapping his hands at her.

"Shut the door! Shut the door! The neighbors will think we killed someone!" hissed Netto. He ran to the door as Rockman scrambled in, and slammed it shut behind his Navi.

Roll's head was filling with questions, but she was having trouble deciding which one should come first; currently it was a tie between "What" and "How".

Netto leaned against the door and breathed a sigh of relief. He and Rockman looked at one another, and for no apparent reason started to laugh uproariously.

"Woo! Mission accomplished!" Netto cheered. Very cautiously, he and Rockman gave each other a high-five.

"Accomplished without dropping anything, either!" Rockman said excitedly.

"Or repelling anything three feet in the air!" Netto countered.

"Or setting anything on fire!"

"Oh come on, you know that time was awesome, who _else_ can say they caught flame-retardant material… on… fire?"

Both boys suddenly realized that they had two angry women giving them the death glare.

"So… ahem," coughed Netto, standing upright and straightening his shirt collar. "This was a test drive of my research. I call it "Dimensional Bubbles"."

"Bubbles?" Roll and Meiru asked together.

"It's similar to a Dimensional Area, but smaller."

"Oh."

"But why…?"

Netto held up a fist. "What are the two problems of Dimensional Areas? One," he put up one finger, "they're nearly impossible to get in and out of. Two," he put up a second, "the bigger you make them, the more money you have to spend to keep up the power supply."

"And so Netto-kun got the bright idea to make Areas that were only big enough to bring a single object into the real world," Rockman continued, sounding proud.

"It's so simple and energy efficient! All you do is surround the object with a form-fitting, very thin Dimensional Area, kind of like making a really tight bubble around it," Netto nodded, also sounding proud. "We've had Rockman walking around the lab for about a month now, but today was the first day time we went outside." He pointed to a thin black belt around Rockman's waist which had a blue hexagonal piece of glass embedded where the buckle would be. "All the machinery is kept right in there."

Rockman tapped at the glass. "There's actually a very small Dimensional Generator in here! With such a thin Dimensional Area, I can actually touch and interact with real-world object without… you know, the normal violent reaction."

"Oh, that's… pretty neat!" Meiru admitted.

Roll had to agree; it was no wonder they were very tight-lipped about their work. Glad that Meiru was no longer angry, she asked, "So where did you go today, Rockman?"

"Just outside, in a car… to the grocery store to try and buy flowers… It was mostly just to see if he could interact with normal environments," Netto said with a shrug.

"You should've seen the looks we got at the store," Rockman chuckled. "Though by far you've had the best reaction, Roll-chan."

Roll wanted to tell him that it was his creepy-stalker-smile that was responsible, but the fire alarm cut her off.

"What?" frowned Netto.

"Oh no! Dinner!" Meiru gasped.

"WHAT?!"

As Netto and Meiru raced into the kitchen, Rockman shook his head. "Man… the neighbors must think we're weirdoes."

Roll secretly agreed, but said nothing.

--

"And for dessert I haaave…"

Meiru dramatically lifted the cover off a cake tray.

"PIE," Netto gasped. Not bothering to stand, he grabbed Meiru around the waist and hugged her tightly, burying his face in her chest.

Rockman thought he heard a muffled "I love you", and shook his head for what seemed like the umpteenth time today. For that kind of reaction, it had to be a French Silk pie.

Meiru spent a full minute detaching herself from her husband. Once separated, she carefully carried the pie over to the counter to cut it. Netto instantly popped out of his chair to follow her, like a puppy following its owner.

Rockman never understood why Netto always got so ecstatic over pie; certainly he was never this excited about it as a kid. Maybe Meiru just had a knack for making pies, like Mama had a knack for making meatballs.

Netto cuddled up behind Meiru and wrapped one arm around her waist. He clasped his other hand over Meiru's knife-holding hand, and gently guided it. "This is for you…" he said, making an initial cut and moving the knife over to where a second, normal-sized piece cut would go. "…And this is for baby" he finished, shifting the knife and cutting the piece twice as big.

"What? I can't eat all that!" Meiru complained.

"You would deny our baby this delicious pie?"

Rockman bit down on his tongue to resist pointing out that the baby couldn't taste. Roll, however, mumbled something about Meiru only needing to eat two hundred more calories a day.

"And this is for me," said Netto, cutting a second, equally-big piece as the first.

Meiru raised an eyebrow. "If the baby is my excuse for such a large piece, what's yours?"

"Me?" Netto asked with mock dignity. "I'm just a pig."

--

Dishes clattered as they were deposited in the sink.

"Hey… Roll-chan."

"Mm?" said Roll, watching Meiru now trying to cover and remove the rest of the pie into the refrigerator and out of her husband's reach.

"Do you… I mean… have… have you ever…"

"Have I what?" asked Roll, turning her head.

Rockman felt himself beginning to blush, but he pressed on. "Netto brought up something awhile ago. I've been meaning to ask you…"

"Oh?"

"Yeah… Meiru-chan's having a baby, and… when it gets bigger, you know… it'll need a Navi."

Roll looked confused. "Of course he or she will. What's your point?"

"I... er, Netto-kun thought that we could…. Have you ever heard of baby Navis?"

Roll stared. "Yes. Why?"

She sounded suspicious, and Rockman knew if he were human, he'd be sweating bullets by now. Of course she knew about them; she must know every possible thing about babies by now, seeing as she spent every minute of her free time researching the subject. "Netto-kun asked me if you… or rather, _we_… would like to get one."

The line that was Roll's mouth stretched wider.

"He thought… that you and I could raise it alongside their child. So we could make sure it was a good Navi for their baby when the time came."

Roll seemed to think it over for a moment. "I suppose we could," she said at last, turning back to the screen. "If Netto-san wants us to. It is a big responsibility."

"Y-yeah. It is."

Rockman was a little depressed. Roll did not sound excited in the least about this, and he had really been hoping this suggestion would lift her out of her funk. Maybe he was imagining things when he thought Roll was jealous of Meiru…

…but it really did look like that. In the kitchen, Netto was standing behind Meiru with his arms securely around her stomach, and the two of them were swaying to a tune only they could hear. Roll was watching them, but she was not smiling. She was, he was certain, trying to look neutral because she couldn't fake happiness.

Trying to sound casual, he asked, "If we got one, you and Meiru-chan could both be mothers, right?"

Roll gave a noncommittal "mm".

Drats. Wasn't a baby the solution to this problem? Sure he and Roll weren't married like Netto and Meiru were, but they could have a similar kind of relationship, if they wanted. If they did that and bought a baby Navi, their lives would be just the same as their Operators, right?

…of course, he realized going bright red, both of them would have to _want_ that... that kind of rela—

"I hope the baby has red hair," Netto mumbled out in the kitchen, "I love your hair."

Meiru jumped up excitedly. "OH! Did you feel that?"

"What?!"

"It moved!"

"What moved?"

"The _baby_. Here, put your hand here…"

Rockman chuckled as Netto got down on his knees, pulled up Meiru's shirt without any sense of modesty, and pressed an ear to her stomach. Meiru, flustered and trying to put her shirt back in order, mumbled something about "feeling, not hearing". She did not, however, push him away.

"I don't feel anything," Netto pouted.

"Well I can. It's probably too small for you to feel yet."

"That's not fair," Netto continued to whine.

"What?" Meiru asked, "You want to have this baby? By all means, be my guest! Childbirth is an oh-so-wonderful experience, you know."

That was it! It wouldn't be the same, because _buying_ a baby was nothing like _having_ one. Roll was jealous of the experience Meiru was having, not the end product of it. Having a baby could be one of the ultimate signs of devotion to another person, and she—they—could not do it.

"Don't worry, I know you can do it."

"You do, huh?"

"Yes!" Netto snuggled his face against his wife's neck. "I know you can do it, because I love you!"

"That's not a real reason—!"

Roll reached forward and closed the window to the kitchen, most likely thinking that Netto's small show of affection would lead to… more things.

"Rockman." Roll kept her gaze straight ahead. "It might be nice to get a baby Navi, but…" she trailed off.

He understood. "It's not the same, is it?" he asked with an apologetic smile.

Roll's shoulders stood up in shock. She raised her head to look at him and there was a long pause as she scrutinized his face.

"No," she smiled sadly back, "it's not."

--

Roll woke up slowly, last night's conversation still running though her head.

Of course, Rockman had wanted to talk things out. He'd been trying to start awkward conversations for about a month… ever since that last argument. It was pointless, really; he would stumble over his words and her curt responses would kill the conversation. Last night the line she used to accomplish that was, "I am happy for Meiru, and that is enough."

His response nearly made her fall over: "You mean it _should_ be enough."

Roll couldn't think of a reply. He was entirely correct; it should be enough, but it wasn't. She was jealous of what Meiru had.

From an outsider's point of view, it made no sense. Meiru was going to loose her job, was in a terrible situation with her mother, and knew in five months when the baby was born, her life was going to _suck_. Netto wasn't going to be around to help and money was going to be tight, so Meiru was going to be stressed and alone.

…and yet, she was happy. She was 18 weeks pregnant, feeling wonderful, and had a loving husband. Somehow, that made all the bad things bearable. That was why Roll was jealous. Despite everything, Meiru was happy to be starting a family.

Apparently, Rockman had figured that out. He also seemed to understand that even if they could emulate that feeling with a baby Navi, it would be just that: an emulation. Roll had a bad feeling that he would still be willing to play the role of "Papa" to make her happy, though.

_What would you say if he asked?_

Her answer was a resounding "no". She did not want to play house with him, did not want to fake having a loving family just for her own selfish desires… Rockman didn't love her, and there was no reason for either of them to pretend that he did.

…but that didn't stop that little voice in her head from asking "_what if?_"

Roll groaned and brought a hand to her face— or rather, she tried to. Something heavy was pinning her arm to her body. She was lying on her side, so all it took was a slight shift of her neck to look down… to look down and see another, very _blue_ arm draped over her.

"R-ro-rockman?!

There was a small mumble somewhere close behind her, and the arm tightened around her, pulling her closer. Roll blanched at the feeling of her hair getting smashed between her back, and… and what had to be _Rockman_, and his… his bent knees bumping against the back of her own.

A female voice giggled.

"M… Mei…" Roll turned from white to purple in a definitely unsafe amount of time. Slowly, very slowly, she looked up…

…to see Meiru smiling ear-to-ear.

"_Meiru-chan!"_ she gasped, scrambling to get away from Rockman.

"Oh don't you worry," Meiru said confidently, "Netto already got a picture."

"What?! But… He… he…"

"Left for work already, so there's nothing you can do about it!"

"But I… I didn't… this isn't my fault!"

"Mmn… what isn't… hwa?"

Roll whipped around. "Rockman! G-good… morning!"

Rockman was sitting up slowly, and seemed to be having trouble focusing on her. "G'morn'n. Whaz goin' on?"

"N-nothing!" Roll said quickly, giving him a big (fake) smile and praying he wouldn't see through it.

Meiru was fighting back her laughter. "Rockman, aha, erm, Netto left a message for you."

"…Netto-kun?"

"Yes. His exact words were: "Go back to sleep!"" Meiru said, imitating her husband for the last part.

"But…" Rockman rubbed at his face, "why would…? What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty," Roll answered.

"_What?!_" Rockman roared, jumping to his feet.

He wobbled. Roll gasped, realizing what was about to happen. Before he could collapse, she stood up and grabbed him. His body was off-balanced and heavy, so she ended up half-guiding and half-falling back to the floor with him.

"Rockman! Are you alright?!"

"Yes."

"Rockman…"

He looked up into her worried face and gave her a reassuring smile. "Really. I'm okay. Just tired. Dimensional Bubbles take a bit of effort to control, especially outside of our lab."

"How long were you outside yesterday?" she asked, not willing to be swayed by a single smile.

"A long time, according to Netto," Meiru interrupted. "He says you should've slept until around noon; that's why he turned off all of your alarms when he got up this morning."

"Noon?!" Roll cried in disbelief.

Rockman sighed. "He was exaggerating. I'm fine now." He stood up again, still a bit unsteady.

Even Meiru looked a little worried at that. "Are you sure, Rockman? Netto said…"

"Yes," Rockman said firmly. "I need to get to work, it's dangerous to leave Netto-kun…" he took one stumbling step forward, "alone…"

Roll dragged him back down before he fell again. "_Sit._"

"But Netto-kun…" Rockman swallowed hard. He was loosing his ability to concentrate at an alarming rate. "I have a bad feeling… that he's… planning something…"

Roll silenced him with a finger. "Hold still. This will only take a second." She clasped her hands over her Navi icon and shut her eyes.

Rockman slumped against her.

_Who knew he got so friendly when he's tired?_

Really, this was strange for him. His behavior towards her had changed very little in their time together. Sometimes, when she startled him with her presence (for instance, when he didn't notice her in the room or she appeared behind him) she could still see his body tense and brace itself a little; a remnant from her days of jumping on him whenever they occupied the same space. And whenever they sat down, Rockman always made sure to leave a polite distance between them if there was enough room to do so. She'd calculated it once; it averaged around 150 pixels, or about five inches.

They'd managed to grow close in little ways these last two years, but none of it warranted this sudden… _cuddling._ They'd slept side-by-side almost every night for two years (so they could set one alarm and get up at the same time), and never once had they been caught spooning. It was sort of embarrassing, really.

Of course, Roll didn't _object_ to his behavior. She'd grown up over the years, but some small part of her still hoped… that maybe someday…

Roll shook her head and went back to the task at hand. While her mind had been drifting around, her body had been searching for spare or unnecessary bits of energy and rerouting them to her Navi icon. She knew her schedule was pretty blank for today, so what she considered "unnecessary" was actually quite a lot. She compressed it as small as she could until it felt like a white-hot ball in her chest. With a practiced ease, she drew it out through her icon into her hands. Some last minute personal modifications during this process left her holding a small, glowing pink heart of pure energy.

Carefully, she pushed in into Rockman's Navi icon. There was a brief pause as it worked its way through his program.

"Whoa!" Rockman gasped, sitting upright. "That's quite a wake up call, Roll-chan!" He stood up, confidently this time, and stretched. Looking pleased, he offered a hand down towards Roll to help her up. "Thank you, I feel great!"

She accepted both his hand and the compliment with a blush, and was pulled daintily to her feet. "Ah, it's nothing much… But it's not a complete fix, mind you, so please take it easy at work today, alright?"

"Netto-kun always makes that difficult," he chuckled, "but I will try."

"And Rockman?" Meiru spoke up. "Can you tell Netto he left his lunch by the front door like the forgetful idiot he is?"

"Yes," Rockman sighed. "I'll make sure he has money to buy lunch."

When nobody said anything more, Rockman gave Roll a smile. "Well then, I guess I'm off."

"Have a nice day," she smiled back.

She watched him disappear, but stayed where she was. Even after she heard Meiru shuffle away, she stayed put. No, she didn't move a single pixel until she had committed every bit of this morning to memory.

What Roll really wanted in life was an unobtainable dream. She couldn't have a family, and Rockman understood that. Moments like this morning always got her hopes up… but in the end, she just saved them away as cherished memories.

--


	6. Shall We Dance?

**EDIT: Why did nobody tell me I forgot to put in the lyrics to the song?? GYAH.**

This is a chapter that sprung up from nowhere. It was a small idea that just kept growing… Would you believe that I had chapters 5 and 6 done even before I had chapter 1 done? It was a single paragraph near the end of 5 that delayed the posting of these two. (It's so annoying to get stuck on something so small!)

Second, I would like to inform you that "Bob" is based off a real person. He was a young history teacher I had in high school (AP U.S.), and successfully completed every prank listed except the chair one. He never found a safe way to do that, but he was nonetheless a Most Awesome Dude.

Finally, I've come to a sad conclusion; if one wants reviews in the slowly dying EXE section, one writes Rock/Blues. But DANGIT people, I like me some cute normal (and CANON, might I add p) pairings. I warn you all, though: _I have very little written past this point_. If you want to encourage me to get it out in a timely fashion, you should tell me that you WANT to read more. p

Capcom owns (and supports) these characters (and their various pairings).

Oh and, uh… I'm pretty sure I read a 'fic YEARS ago that had something similar to Dimensional Bubbles controlled by belts… but all I remember was everyone eating ice cream at the end. SO! If you recognize that terrible description and remember a title or author, please let me know?

--

"Can we at least get a hint?" whined Meiru, slumped against the passenger-seat window of the car.

"For the last time, _no_! Quit asking!" snapped Netto, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in irritation. "It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you what it was, would it? We're like not even five minutes away from SciLabs, can't you wait?"

"No," said Meiru, Rockman, and Roll all in unison.

Netto groaned and thunked his forehead down on the rim of the steering wheel. It was supposed to be simple; get the three of them to SciLabs. But no, things were never simple. He had very nearly ruined a _month_ of sneaking around in secret (which was no small feat around Rockman) by telling them "I have a surprise for Roll". It was only a matter of time before somebody put two and two together and ruined said surprise.

"Why can't we get a hint?"

"Not even a tiny one?"

"Plea—oh, the light's turned green."

"I refuse to listen to any comments from the peanut gallery!" Netto snapped.

The car behind them honked, and Netto jolted upright. Noticing the traffic light, he sheepishly corrected himself. "Except that last one."

--

Meiru plucked at the sticker on the front of her shirt. "He wasn't serious, was he?"

"No! Leave it on!" Netto laughed, swatting her hands away and smoothing the sticker back in place on the light blue blouse that covered his wife's barely showing 5-month pregnant stomach. "It's funny! Everyone will know it was Bob's idea."

_And plus it distracts you from guessing why we're here…_

"Bob", the elderly man who worked at the front security desk, had shocked Meiru by giving her two Visitor stickers: one with a picture of her smiling face and her name, and a second with a snapshot of her torso and "Hikari Offspring" written underneath. Before she could refuse, Netto had grabbed the sticker and put it on, then guided her away into the building with a wave of thanks to Bob.

"But it's… I can't seriously walk around like this, Netto!" Meiru hissed. "It's embarrassing!"

"Trust me, nobody's going to laugh at you," Netto said in what he hoped sounded like a sincere voice. He gave Meiru a pat on the hand to emphasize his point. "I'm telling you, everyone knows when Bob's behind something."

"Knows but can never prove it. He's a crafty old man," Rockman mumbled.

"He's in charge of the security cameras; he can hide whatever he wants," Netto sighed.

"Meiru, what's wrong with the sticker? I thought you wanted people to notice the baby!"

"I said I was tired of people looking at me like they can't decide if I'm pregnant or just fat, but that doesn't mean I want a giant sticker on my stomach that announces it to the entire world!" Meiru griped.

As husband and wife walked out into the spacey atrium filled with squat armchairs and potted tree sprouts, more than few looks were sent their way.

"See?" Meiru hissed. "They're staring! I don't want—"

"They just don't recognize you," Netto cut off. "You haven't been here since we were little."

Women were so strange. Netto had long since given up the hope of ever winning an argument with his wife; nowadays he was lucky to get a draw. Hoping she would settle for one now, he guided his wife towards the elevators.

A very tall, very tan man in a long white lab coat waiting to go up smiled at Netto as they drew near. When the doors to elevator number two opened, he held them open and waved Meiru through with a "Ladies first!"

"Good morning Moeddeyum-hakase!" Netto said with a polite nod.

"Hello Hikari-hakase."

Netto tried to think what Moeddeyum's research was, and drew up a blank. (Rockman would know, though; Rockman made it a point to remember the things he didn't.) Really, the only thing he knew about this man was that their offices were two doors apart.

Moeddeyum-hakase saved him the trouble of starting a conversation. "I take it this is your wife?" He turned and nodded a greeting to Meiru. "I am sorry about Bob. He likes his little jokes."

Meiru made a huff of annoyance.

Despite it being a potentially very dangerous thing to do, Netto chuckled, "See? I told you!"

"He is a good man at heart, though, and quite the chef! Did you try one of his oatmeal raisin cookies at the Wheelie Chair Race, Hikari-hakase?"

"Wheelie…?" asked Meiru, her eyes narrowing with shocked confusion.

"Haha, yeah! He collected chairs with wheels and sent out e-mails to everyone saying that there was going to be a race on the smooth linoleum floor of wing 2A… He even set up the chairs and had a refreshment table!" Netto explained excitedly. "I got second; would've gotten first if my chair hadn't tipped over right at the end." He scowled at that memory. "Papa won, but I'm pretty sure he sabotaged my chair because—"

"But," Rockman interrupted, frowning, "everything was sent anonymously. Nobody knows if it was Bob! He wasn't even _at_ the race!"

"Oh it was him," Netto grinned as the elevator doors opened to the third floor. "It's always Bob. The chairs glued upside down on the ceiling in 3C… the bird bath in 2D's break room…"

"More like triple-tiered bird _fountain_," Rockman muttered darkly. In a barely audible whisper he added, "At least the birds are gone now."

This made Roll burst out in laughter. Meiru stumbled off the elevator shaking her head, and Netto bowed a small goodbye to Moeddeyum-hakase.

The hallway stretched left and right. Netto made a right, and Meiru followed.

A small voice drifted out from the blue PET on Netto's hip. "Um… Netto-san? I thought your lab was on the fourth floor…"

Rockman's voice chimed in, "It is."

Meiru frowned. "Where are we going, then?"

_Oh crap…_

"We… we're visiting a friend."

Netto saw Rockman's eyes narrow, but before he could make any guesses (or accusations) Meiru said, "So we're not here for Dimensional Bubbles?"

"Wait, what?"

"Well yeah," said Meiru, "I thought you wanted to let Roll try doing it."

"Oh," Netto blinked.

"That's… that's what I though too, Netto-san," Roll added timidly.

She didn't sound disappointed, but all the same…

"No… that's not why we're here," he admitted, "but that's an excellent idea! We should totall—"

"NETTO-SAAAAN!"

Netto nearly dropped his PET in shock. A short, stocky security-type looking Navi colored in various shades of violent pink had appeared in the PET out of the blue. "Na…" he stopped himself from saying her name; it would be a big hint to Rockman. "Wh-what's wrong?"

The pink Navi stood up as tall and straight as she could, and offered a very deep and very formal bow to Rockman and Roll. "Please pardon my intrusion," she said without any sort of inflection.

"Oh…" Rockman faltered, "no, it's okay."

"Hikari-hakase," she said, now bowing towards Netto, "I regret to inform you that we…" She glanced up, giving him a fearful look, "'Fraid we're runnin' a bit late. Can you…" She looked positively terrified now. "If you… could maybe…"

Knowing this Navi, this could go on forever. Netto did some rescheduling checks in his head. "That's absolutely fine. How about we stop by at 1 o'clock, after lunch?"

The Navi gave a curt nod. "Understood, hakase. Thank you for your understanding." She bowed deeply once more, and burst into a cloud of pixels that disappeared in the blink of an eye.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Netto-kun… who—no, _what_ was that?" Rockman asked in disbelief.

Netto gave his Navi a roguish smile and a wink. "Can't tell ya yet. So! What say we go try and make some Bubbles?"

--

"Matrix three is showing a bad response."

Rockman heard one of the three sets of furious typing stop.

"Whaaat?" Netto said in disbelief. "No way, I re-wrote part of that just yesterday …" There was a squeak of wheels rolling on the floor, and it sounded as though Netto was propelling his chair across the room with his feet. "No waaay," he moaned when the chair stopped, "I just fixed this."

A deeper voiced chimed in with his analysis. "It looks like Generator II is having trouble getting past the activation barrier."

"Rockmaaan, this is the same exact runtime error we've dealt with all week."

Rockman sighed and turned to Roll. "I'm sorry, could you wait here a second?"

Roll nodded her assent. "Take your time."

"Thanks." He reached out with a small signal and, feeling a connection to the main computer, transported himself in a small beam of light. He had a sneaking suspicion what the problem was, and by linking into the main computer now, he would save himself the trouble of doing it a second later.

Orienting himself in the new server, Rockman was on the verge of opening a command window when Netto made a noise of disbelief. "Oh… hey…"

"Let me guess," Rockman sighed, "you forgot to upload the new file once you changed it."

George and Robert, Netto's two main co-workers on this project and best work friends, groaned in unison.

"Again?"

"_Please_ tell me you remember where you saved it."

"Yeah… yeah I think so…" Netto laughed sheepishly. "I remembered what I named it, anyway."

George ran a hand through his hair with another groan. "You _are_ aware how many terabytes our department folder takes up? _Tera_, Hikari. T-E-R-A."

"I'll go recruit some Mr. Progs to help us search," Robert sighed in resignation.

"Not to worry, folks!" Rockman reassured, holding up a placating hand. "I filed this one away, so I know exactly…" he opened a display window, swiftly navigated through the department drive, and pointed to a small text file, "…where it is!"

George and Robert applauded him.

"You're a lifesaver!" Netto grinned.

"Among other things," Rockman said. He copied the text file over to Netto, who in turn uploaded it to the correct server. A second later, the error message disappeared.

"Generator II is showing a normal output… and should hold steady," said George, typing on a terminal across the room.

"All systems are green. We ready to go?" Robert asked.

Netto got out of his chair. He stood up tall and formally, and held his hands clasped behind his back. "Alright men! Prepare for launch!"

"Aye aye, Captain!" his partners in crime cheered.

Rockman shook his head. "Well wait for me to get back in the generator…" Getting back into a Bubble Generator was much more difficult than exiting one. Despite the fact that it could only be activated externally, it was still protected by several passwords and firewalls to prevent just anyone from getting in. It took Rockman a full thirty seconds to get past everything, even with his months of practice.

"Welcome back."

Roll's greeting made him pause. He had been expecting a "How was your day?". With another shake of his head, he reminded himself that he was at SciLabs, not at home.

It was different, having Roll at work; different, but nice.

Roll looked puzzled at his silence. "If you can't get a second Bubble working, I don't need to go with you…" she said shyly.

"Oh no, no," he reassured, "everything is working now. Are you ready?"

"Yes!" she smiled confidently. "How will this work?"

"Oh!" Maybe Netto wasn't the only forgetful one. "That's important, isn't it?" Ignoring Roll's small giggle, he explained the basics. "We'll start out with a big round Bubble around the two of us, and once we've got the Generators attached to us I'll shrink it down to be more form-fitting."

Truth be told, he had never tried to create a Bubble for two people. He'd come into the real world with a variety of virtual objects, but all of them had been small and rather geometric. Roll was just as big and complicated of a structure as he was. He looked her up and down, evaluating her in terms of surface area.

_She's very… curvy. This might be diffi—_

Roll suddenly put one arm behind her back, grabbing her other arm at the elbow. "What?"

"Huh?" Rockman glanced up, and noticed Roll was biting her lip and blushing. "O-oh!" He felt his own face go about three shades darker than hers. "I'm not… it's just, the amount of Bubble I need to create depends on surface area, and I was trying to estimate how much energy this is going to use…"

"Oh!" Roll's hand fell back down. "So we should make ourselves as compact as possible?"

"Well... I guess so. We haven't completely automated the Generators yet; to maintain a uniform Dimensional Field and keep the Bubble up, I have to constantly monitor the Field's energy output and fine tune adjust it as necessary."

"And that's easier when there are not as many small complicated surfaces to cover, right?"

"Right." It was fairly straightforward physics; nonetheless, he was pleased Roll had caught on so quickly.

Roll screwed her face up in thought. She stood up tall, put her legs together, and balled her fists at her side. "And maybe," she mumbled, looking up. Her antenna straightened out and fell down to lie flat against her helmet. "I don't think I can do anything about my hair," she apologized.

Rockman bit back a laugh; it was cute to see her trying this hard. "I didn't mean it that literally. Here," he held out a hand, "come closer. We have to be touching to share the same bubble."

Roll closed the gap between them in two steps, and threw him completely off-guard by throwing her arms around his middle. She leaned over to make sure her legs were together and close to his, then laid her head down on his shoulder. She snuggled a little to get her helmet comfortably in the crook of his neck.

Rockman blushed darker than he could ever remember blushing in his life. "W-what…?"

Roll twisted her head slightly to look up at him. "You said make less surface area. Doesn't this help?" Noticing the shade of his face, she became very self-conscious. "Oh. I didn't… I mean…" She pulled away, her own face staining red.

"No that would—"

"No, it's alright, I—"

"Stop!" Rockman wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her roughly back into a hug. "That's good. F-for surface area, I mean!"

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. It would be much easier this way." Well... maybe a little, anyway, but he didn't want to tell Roll that.

Reluctantly, Roll moved back into her previous position, this time with Rockman holding on to her as well.

Rockman was very glad that he had only opened a sound channel; with the complexity of logging into a Bubble Generator, it wasn't really worth the effort to get both a video window and a sound channel to link to the main computer. And, with no video, it meant Netto had seen none of this awkward moment.

Unfortunately, he could still _hear_ them. "What are you two doing in there?" he said, laughter evident in his voice.

Rockman chose not to dignify his question with a comeback. Getting down to business, he sighed, "We're ready when you are, _Captain_."

"Alright then. Power… on!"

"Generator I is starting up," said George. "Signal is rising."

"Generator II is up also," Robert added, "and both Generators are in sync."

"Good," said Netto, sounding pleased. "Ready to go?"

Rockman tightened his grip around Roll. "Yeah, I can feel the connection… can you, Roll-chan?"

"Yes," she answered, "a link opened."

"And we're going to take it. On the count of three, let's transfer together, okay? I'll explain more when we get there."

"Okay," she mumbled into his neck.

All went well, and three seconds later the two of them were standing in the Test Room. It was a small, rectangular room with thick, non-conductive walls and contained only a table, window, and door. The widow was a double plate of bullet-proof glass, and looked into the Control Room where Netto and his two cronies controlled everything from a safe distance.

Just as Rockman had expected, the three boys in the control room made noises about him and Roll. Ignoring their childish behavior (and somewhat perplexed at Meiru's scandalized expression), he let go of Roll and leaned down to pick the two Bubble Generators off of the floor. He slung one on his wrist like a very loose bracelet, and undid the latch on the second, quickly looping it around Roll's waist.

"See how tight you can make this," he told her, letting her take it, "it needs to be pretty snug." When she was done, he made sure the latch was on tight, and then put on his own.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rockman saw George lean towards the microphone sticking up from the main computer in the Control Room. "Try and hurry," his voice said from a speaker in the ceiling, "your Bubble is starting to fluctuate."

He pulled Roll towards him, and she quickly got into their previous position. "Shoot. Is something wrong?"

"No," George called, typing slowly, "just a few strange blips."

"Regardless, that's something we don't want to see," Netto muttered.

"I'm ready, please transfer control to Generator I," Rockman said.

"Mmkay," Netto replied.

As soon as he was in control, Rockman could feel what George was talking about. The bubble, which was just big enough to fit both him and Roll with a little distance to step apart, was having trouble maintaining it's rotund shape. "I'm going to shrink our bubble now, Roll-chan. You'll feel it come in, it will be like…" he paused, trying to think of a good analogy, "a very faint pressure all around you. You need to kind of push back at it; if it gets too small, your bubble will collapse."

"Is that bad?"

"Not really. You'd automatically log-out, so it wouldn't hurt. It's just a waste of start-up energy, mostly," he shrugged. "And don't push back too hard, either. The bigger a bubble gets, the thinner it gets. It's a lot like a real bubble; when it gets too thin it's easier to pop. If you get a hole and don't close it really quick, you'll log out and the bubble will disintegrate."

"So… In short, I control the energy output of my Dimensional Area to try and maintain a uniform thickness, right?" Roll asked as he conformed the bubble to fit around her.

"Yes, but it's a very small output. The trick is like you said; keep it uniform. I'm almost done, can you feel it?"

"Yes," she said. "It's… strange."

"Try sticking out an arm and feel how the bubble adjusts. It takes a little getting used—"

He felt Roll move her right arm away from his back, and at the same time felt the fabric of the bubble shift and thin to cover the new protrusion.

"Woo," she mumbled, "it does change. Neat."

"What are you doing?" Their bubble was making a lot of tiny fluctuations, something they could both feel.

"Wiggling my fingers. This isn't so hard!" Without warning, Roll took a step away. She kept her hands on his chest to keep their bubble together, but it made an odd kind of squelch feeling as it quickly filmed over their new exposed fronts.

"Careful!" Rockman gasped. "Don't go so quick; you've never done this before!"

"I'm fine," she said nonchalantly. "Can I let go?"

"I-I guess so… but go slow! When you let go you'll be in complete control, and I won't be able to help you stabilize—"

"Phooey, you'll just reconnect our bubbles if I screw up, right?" Not waiting for an answer, she whipped her hands away.

There was a startled gasp from the speakers. "Generato—!!" It was Robert, and he paused. "Generator II is showing a normal output… Good job, Roll!"

Rockman let out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding. "Why are you being so reckless?" Impressed or not, she was being downright dangerous.

Roll tried (and failed) to look apologetic. "When you told me what I would have to do, I knew I would be good at it!" She waved energetically to Meiru through the window. "It's like how I heal."

"You heal by stealing energy from an enemy; how is that like this?" Rockman asked, giving her a blank stare.

Meiru spoke up for the first time in quite a while. "How do you think she heals you when there are no enemies around?"

"She can do that?" asked Netto, looking shocked. "I've never seen her do it any other way."

"Yeah, she can," Rockman said slowly, thinking of once such instance that had happened only two weeks ago. "But… you never did it when we—well, when Netto-kun and Meiru-chan were little."

"I learned how to do it on my own; it's not something I was programmed for." Roll laughed and pranced a few steps further away. "I use my own energy!"

"What?" Rockman gasped. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Oh, no," she smiled. "With my antenna, I'm good at scanning, right? So I just constantly monitor my energy output and keep it to a minimum. That way, I keep quite a bit of excess in the battery of my PET. I used to save it for emergencies, but I've gotten so efficient at storing it over the years that I can save enough for more than once use."

Roll laughed at his awestruck face. She twisted her torso and then swung her arms quickly in the opposite direction, which gave her the momentum to spin gracefully around in a circle balanced on one foot. "So this is easy! I've had years of practice."

Netto made an impressed "Ooh!" and clapped alongside his co-workers. "We should've gotten _you_ to join this project, Roll!"

Roll was staring shyly at Rockman; was she was waiting for a response? She was probably in one of her "anything-you-can-do-I-can-too" moods, but he decided to humor her and give his honest opinion. "That's amazing, Roll-chan! I didn't know you could do that. It's very resourceful!"

She made a soft pleased noise, and quickly turned her gaze away. "I suppose so…" Looking to the right, she noticed the table in the room for the first time. "Oh!"

It was a small wooden end table, nothing very spectacular. It was mostly used to practice picking things up and putting them down, and because of this it was battered, chipped, and even burnt in a few spots. Currently, the only things on it were a paperback book and a glass vase with a single, wilting rose in it.

"A flower!" Roll said, lightly skipping over to the table. "How pretty!" She reached down to grab the vase.

"Ah, wait!"

It was too late. As Roll's fingertips brushed the glass, her bubble fizzled and let off a spark and a loud pop. "Oh!"

"Roll-chan!" Rockman barreled across the room and collided with her, throwing his arms around her tightly. "Calm down and try—! "

He stopped mid-sentence. Now that their bubbles were (rather forcefully) joined, all he could feel was a uniform, perfect bubble.

"You startled me!" Roll scolded, swatting at the arms around her middle. "I'm in control, don't worry."

"Well… alright," he conceded. Still nervous, he added, "Try again, but _slower_ this time! Thin or not, Dimensional Areas _don't like_ to interact with normal matter."

Roll reached forward. Slowly, she let her fingers wrap around the glass. After a pause to make sure nothing would explode, she lifted the glass up and off the table. "There! I got it," she exclaimed quietly. With her other hand, she used one finger to brush along the top of the rose's petals; it quivered under her delicate touch, and a single petal fell, fluttering to the table. "How sad… it's wilting."

Rockman was really impressed with her now; there was no way to could do something that precise without a few fizzles from his bubble. Living things were harder to interact with, for some strange reason. On the verge of telling her this, he was interrupted by a laugh.

"Oooh, smooth move there Casanova. Very nice save… but how long are you going to help Roll with her bubble?"

With an embarrassed peep, he realized he was still holding Roll around her waist. He turned and, despite what must've been an obvious blush, gave Netto his best defiant scowl. "Until she doesn't need my help."

"Mmn," said Netto, not sounding convinced. "Well you've got the flowers, but I think you could use some music to help set the mood." He pressed something, and the speakers began to play a song Rockman had never heard before.

"Oh!" Roll's face lit up, and she turned to the observation window. "We haven't watched this movie in _years._"

"I know!" Meiru agreed. She gave her husband a confused smile. "This is Casa_blanca_, not Casa_nova_."

"Yes; it was supposed to be a pun of sorts."

"Have you ever even seen Casablanca?"

"Well… no, but…"

Roll more than recognized this song; she knew the words, and happily sang along.

__

"...And when two lovers woo  
They still say, "I love you."  
On that you can rely  
No matter what the future brings  
As time goes by..."

She wasn't half-bad at singing, a new fact which surprised Rockman. She was really getting into it; she was swaying to the music now. Figuring Netto couldn't tease him much for it, he swayed with her. It was a nice song.

Unfortunately, Roll took that as an invitation to go further. She twisted around in his arms, still singing, and grabbed his right hand with her left. She brought it up to shoulder height and, resting her other hand over the arm still around her waist, began a slow waltz. Flushing red at the laughter from the other room, Rockman clumsily attempted to follow her steps.

_"...Moonlight and love songs  
Never out of date.  
Hearts full of passion  
Jealousy and hate.  
Woman needs man  
And man must have his mate  
That no one can deny..."_

"Come on, Rockman," Meiru called out, "you're the man, you're supposed to lead."

"I-I guess… I'm not really into waltzes." Truth be told, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen someone waltzing.

"Me neither," said Netto. He shut off the song abruptly, which earned him a "hey!" from the two women. "Let's pick a new one."

"Oh… Netto-kun, I don't really…" Rockman began.

"Aha!" Netto shouted. "I _know_," and here he paused to chuckle darkly, "you know this one, Rockman."

_Oh no…_

It was a pop song, and was the end theme to an anime that Netto used to watch a few years ago. In it, all the characters from the show lined up and did a funny little dance to the beat while the credits scrolled by. Rockman just so happened to remember most of it, and… Netto had sort of caught him trying to do it once, but… well, there was no way he was going to _wiggle_ in front of all these people.

Roll felt quite the opposite, and happily detached herself from him to start the dance. She held her arms out to the side and waited for the lyrics. "Do you know this one?"

"Er…"

"Come on!" She gave him a smirk. "I bet you can't do it all and keep your bubble up."

"Ooh! Are you going to take that from her?"

"I bet you ten zenny that he can't do it."

"I'll bet you twenty he can!"

Rockman glared at everyone behind the window. "Don't make bets!" Worse yet, Netto was betting _against_ him. "I'm not—"

"Please, Rockman?" Roll switched tactics and gave him a bashful pleading stare.

_Whoever invented that look and then decided to teach it to women…_

"Mmn… if you insist." Netto and his friends were already laughing; he was doomed no matter what he chose… it was a Catch-22. And maybe, he reasoned, it was good practice for complex movements in a bubble and quickly joining and disconnecting bubbles… right? Deciding to go with that second bit of logic, Rockman stood next to Roll and spread his arms right as the singing began.

_Step to the right… then left… arms up, and windmill… fingers apart… now clasp to my chest… shake my…erm, spin…_

Spinning, he caught a flash of Roll. She was laughing hysterically, and seemed to be having a good time despite the fact she wasn't getting each step quite right. Everyone in the Control Room was cracking up as well; the feeling was becoming infectious. Unable to hold back a smile, Rockman put a little more effort into his movements.

_Forward… around… one, two, three, hop!_

Roll stepped behind him for the next bit, and pushed on the small of his back to guide him around conga-style. When they turned to switch directions, she tripped on his foot and fell forward. He clumsily snagged her under the arms and hauled her back up to her feet, now laughing just as hard as she was. Sure they looked like idiots, but this was actually kind of fun! He was glad he'd gotten dragged into it.

It was different, having Roll at work; different, but nice.

…_hm._

_We should do this more often._

--


	7. The Grand Tour

GUAH WHY did nobody tell me I forgot to put in the lyrics for the song Roll sings?!?! I had it saved in a different file … Sigh.

When I first got the idea for the main bit of this story, I immediately asked myself, "How would that work even??" So I thought up this chapter. I've had it pretty much entirely written out in my head for three years, but never… you know, _actually wrote it down._ Hopefully this does a halfway decent job of rectifying that.

Oh, and… have any of you been wondering why I don't have Link PETs (the ones that do holograms) or more importantly, Trill? There's a very simple reason… It's just… I started writing this before any of those things existed. Haha, isn't that sad??

Trill in particular would've been nice to include here and there… but I've decided to keep this story as it started out, so you can kinda sorta assume that it takes place in a universe where Stream and Beast never happened.

Lastly, I don't know the Japanese name for the normal type green-and-yellow Navis, so I'll be using their Battle Chip Challenge name: NormNav1.

As you all full well know, Capcom owns all this stuff.

Also, a big thank you to everyone who reads this! This story is a daily battle of "this is cute!" versus "this is stupid I'm quitting!". You have no idea how much every click helps. =)

--

After the pop song, George picked out a tango. Despite the fact that they were both caught up in the silly moment, Rockman had really surprised Roll by grabbing the rose out of its vase, putting it in his mouth, and offering her his hand with a rather over-the-top dashing smile (complete with eyebrow wiggle). She accepted and the two of them stomped around the parameter of the room three times, switching directions every now and then with an elaborate twirl.

At the end of the song, Roll threw herself back, splaying her arms in a deep dip. Rockman wasn't expecting it, and in his scramble to hold onto her he bit the rose stem in half. She had then tried to catch the falling rose, which caused them to unbalance and crash to the floor. Rockman's face landed right in her chest, and (even though she wasn't human and didn't care about those kinds of things… _too_ much) he turned the darkest shade of red she'd ever seen him go. Flustered, trying to get back up, and trying to spit rose stem out of his mouth, Rockman lost control of his bubble and was forced to log-out. This of course left Roll to figure out how to correctly log-out by herself, but with Netto's guidance it hadn't been too hard.

Netto was happy; not only had they gotten some good data, but he had also won twenty zenny for betting Rockman would loose control of his bubble first. He and Meiru had then gone down to the cafeteria for lunch, while Roll and Rockman retreated to her PET for a quick pick-me-up. Despite his assertion that he had done this a thousand times before and was perfectly fine, Roll refused to let Rockman leave her PET until she forced some of her reserves upon him.

Roll swung her feet and breathed a sigh of relief. Dimensional Bubbles were fun, but they certainly took a lot of effort to use. Really, she was content to sit here just like this, side-by-side on a high ledge overlooking SciLab's main server.

"Aah look! There he is!"

"Who?" Roll asked, scanning the crowd below.

"The purple striped Mr. Prog I told you about!"

"Purple? Where?"

Rockman grabbed her around the shoulder and pulled her close so their helmets were touching. He pointed, trying to make sure they were both looking at the same spot. Sure enough, a little green Mr. Prog with vivid purple stripes was floating aimlessly around.

"Huh," Roll mused. "Who painted him that shade of purple?"

Rockman leaned back. "He says he did it himself!"

"You asked him?" she said, raising an eyebrow. She also noted, with some amusement, that Rockman had let his hand drop a bit but was still loosely holding onto her.

"Well yeah. I thought he might not work here; it seemed kind of strange when he just appeared one day. So I found out where he…"

Healing him had made him much more animated. As Roll watched him talk, she couldn't help but smile.

_Yes, just like this… that's all I want._

--

"Trinity! Get out here _now_. We don't have tim— oh. Hello, Hikari Jr."

At the word "Junior", Roll wondered where the elder Hikari-hakase was; knowing him, he was probably holed up in his office two floors down, doing something of grave importance. She made a mental note to suggest visiting him later.

"Hi," Netto greeted. "Did we come at a bad time…?"

The scientist turned from his computer to give his guests a proper greeting. He was a middle-aged man (probably only a few years younger than the elder Hikari-hakase) with neatly combed faded blonde hair and shocking blue eyes.

Netto began the introductions. "Meiru, this is Newell-hakase. Newell-hakase, this is my wife!"

He looked like he was from Ameroupe and had the right accent for it; his origins were as good as confirmed when he shook Meiru's hand instead of bowing. "Hello Mrs. Hikari! I'm very happy to be meeting you at last."

"Aah," Meiru breathed, "Netto hasn't said anything bad, has he?"

"Quite the contrarty!" he smiled.

Meiru failed to hide her blush with a giggle. Roll could see why she was flustered; Newell-hakase was very handsome. He had a definitive 5 o'clock shadow, but at the same time had wrinkles around his eyes that suggested many years of smiles and laughter.

"So what's up with Nana?" Netto asked.

"The usual. She's freaking out about goodness-knows-what, and we're expecting a surro—" he cut off awkwardly, but only missed a single beat before continuing with, "—one of our test subjects to arrive any minute. I'd ask Nanette to give you guys the tour but…" He gestured at his computer blankly.

Netto pulled the PET off his hip. "Hey Rockman," he said, "can you plug in to the computer and look for that pink Navi you met earlier? Her name's Nana. She gets… a little strange at times."

"Not strange!" huffed a voice from the computer. "Tripolar, but not _strange._"

"Tripolar?" Netto laughed. "That's a new one, Nana. I like it!"

Rockman made a motion for Roll to follow him, and so the two of them transferred wirelessly into Newell's server.

Except for the fact that the floor and walls were themed green, this server was practically a mirror of Newell-hakase's lab. The walls had rows of "computers" spaced evenly apart; between two of these, Nanette stood, shaking a fist. "There's a distinct distinction between the two, _Hikari_. Don't go naming what you haven't experienced!"

When they'd first met this morning, Roll had thought Nanette's appearance was more unusual than her behavior. She looked like a NormNav2 (because of her pink and fuchsia coloring and the non-humanoid face), but was a bit shorter and heavier than normal for that type, almost like an old-fashioned Security model. Watching Nanette shake her fist at Netto, she was starting to change her mind. "Erm, hello?"

Nanette jumped almost a foot in the air when she noticed Roll and Rockman. She crouched back down into her hiding spot and peeped, "I-I-I'm so… t-that was rude..."

Roll, never one to beat around the bush, strode boldly towards Nanette. "Hello! Please don't be frightened. I'm Roll-chan, it's nice to meet you!"

"R-ro-roll…chan…"

"Mmhm!" she smiled happily. "Are you alright? Why are you hiding here?"

"O-oh. It's just… my… Abel said he'd fix it. I can't… not without it…"

"Without what?" Rockman asked kindly, stepping up beside Roll.

"M-muh… my… he said… mmh."

Roll shared a worried glance with Rockman. "It's alright, take your time. Are you looking for somet—" she stopped mid-sentence, finally realizing what was missing from this picture; Nanette's apron! When they'd first met her this morning, she had been wearing the cutest white apron tied around her waist. Now, it was gone. "Oh! It's your apron, isn't it?"

"Yes! Yes please, I… the chip…" Nanette stammered.

"Apron? What apron?" Rockman asked.

"She was wearing it earlier," Roll answered.

"I don't remember it…"

"It's big and white," Roll scoffed, "and covered about half of her torso. How did you _not_ notice it?"

Newell-hakase buried his face in his hands. "You've been making all this fuss for a _fashion chip?_"

"I don't care what you say; I need my apron! Stop whining and look for it!" she snapped back. "If… you could… please?"

The search ended thirty seconds later when Meiru made a noise of surprise. "Ack! I think… I think I found it, and I think I stepped on it." She leaned over to pick the small chip up off the floor, but Netto shooed her away and did it himself. "I'm not an invalid, you know!" she huffed.

"Uh-huh," Netto nodded absently, not paying attention. "I think it's still okay. Newell-hakase?"

Newell-hakase took the offered chip with an irritated grunt. He slotted it in to his PET. "There. Happy?"

A large white blur appeared in front of Nana; as the resolution became better and better, a frilly apron came into focus. When it had completely materialized, Nanette grabbed it before it could flutter to the floor. "Yeees, thank you much!" she cheered. In less than a second, she tied it around herself with an elaborate bow. She smoothed out the wrinkles and gave a long sigh. "That's so much better."

For some inane reason, the apron gave Nanette a new sense of confidence. She hopped out of her hiding spot and burst out, "Hello dears! I know who you are, obviously, but I'm sure you don't know me." She stuck out her hand and shook each of their hands vigorously. "My name is , but that's such a boring old moniker, so please! Call me Nanette!"

How "Trinity" related to "Nanette", Roll had no idea. But it would be rude to ask, so she settled for, "Nanette? Netto-san called you Nana."

"Oh, that," Nanette blushed.

Netto chuckled. "When I first met her, all she could say was 'I'm Na.. na… na…'. It bothers her, so I call her that."

"He's too stubborn to change it," Nanette sighed in resignation.

"Nanette," Newell-hakase interrupted, "we're running late thanks to you. Can you do the tour while I set up for our appointment?"

"Caaan dooo! Hikari family, let's begin the awesomely awesome tour!" Her voice turned cold. "Rockman, Roll, follow me. Hakase, you and your wife may be seated; we will be walking between servers, but you have no need to move." Just as suddenly, her face brightened. "I love giving tours!"

--

The first stop was the main server. Rockman was curious why they'd come here; he was here every single day, and there was hardly anything special about it.

"Now then!" Nanette said. "This tour is a history of Newell-hakase's work. Newell-hakase has worked in Navi Development for… well, a long time. How much do either of you know about Navi Development?"

"Erm…" Rockman glanced at Roll. She returned his blank look, so he answered, "Nothing more than the basics."

"M'alright then, I'll explain a bit. A Navi is composed of two parts: the body, which we call a "frame", and Soul Data. It's real easy to write an executable program and give it some blank data to make what _looks_ like a Navi, but all the higher AI functions require Soul Data. Regular commercial "Person" type Navis and Mr. Progs contain very little or poor Soul Data; as such, they can carry out basic commands but can't really think for themselves and don't really display much in the way of emotion. Security type Navis have a bit more Soul Data, because they need to recognize threats and react correctly to situations. Customizable Navis, however, have much more Soul Data than any of those. This is what enables them to be so human-like; they not only recognize and react to the world, but learn from it. They…" Nanette paused, looking stumped, "basically, more Soul Data means they have emotions, among other minutia I won't go into."

"Yes, I know a bit about that," Rockman nodded. "Papa—er, Hikari-hakase was one of the original creators of Soul Data." Technically, _he _was the reason Papa had gone into Navi Development and nearly revolutionized it, but he wasn't about to tell Nanette the reasoning behind that choice.

"Yes, yes, Newell-hakase has worked a bit with Hikari senior… I'm surprised you've never heard of him before today."

She and Roll gave him an expectant look.

"Oh, uh…" he blushed, "I don't know all of Papa's secrets. He's very tight-lipped about his research, even to us."

"Hm," Nanette hummed, "oh well. Regardless, it's Netto we have to thank for our current work."

"What? What did I do?" Netto gaped.

"I'm getting there," said Nanette. "From start to finish, it takes about two years to create a fully-customizable Navi. This is because the most crucial part, the Soul Data, is not easy to create. Obviously, many people have been looking for a way to make this long, expensive process more efficient. You and Rockman gave us a step forward when you discovered 'Spontaneous Generation'. Or the virtual version of that, anyway."

If spontaneous generation was a theory that life formed from inanimate objects, then… "Oh!" Rockman said, understanding. "You mean when supposedly deleted Navis come back to life in the Undernet?"

"Oh, like… Shademan?" Netto ventured.

"Very good," Nanette smiled. "Yes, Navis like that. They are created when surviving fragments of the original Navi combine with enough spare data floating around to reconstruct a body. They're usually quite incomplete, though; without complete Soul Data, many of them have severe AI defects."

"So that's why they all act deranged," Netto muttered.

Rockman thought about admonishing him for being rude, but… he kind of had a point.

"When you first discovered one, it was thought to be a strange, rare occurrence. After several such Navis were reported, people began to take the theory, or in this case _threat_, much more seriously. Newell-hakase was the first to try and put spontaneous generation to better use… and created me!"

"You were the first Navi he ever made?" Netto asked. Rockman could see laughter in his eyes, and knew what his Operator was thinking: _That explains a lot._

"Yep!" Nanette said proudly, missing Netto's implication. "He took the Soul Data of three incomplete Navis and combined them together to make one, finished product. I am one third fully-customizable, one third security-type, and one third NormNav2. They make up a complete set of Soul Data, but… well, Soul Data is a bit different depending on what kind of Navi you want to make, and they… don't mix together absolutely perfect. It's why… when I get stressed, I get mood swings."

"Doesn't' everybody?" Roll giggled. "I get mood swings too; ask Rockman."

Rockman was unsure how to reply. Saying yes would make Nanette feel better, but then Roll would think that _he_ thought that she was moody. He gave a small chuckle, hoping that was both a neutral and good enough answer.

"You're sweet," Nanette smiled. "But! Yes, I was first, and no, I am not perfect. So, Newell-hakase began to look at new ways to create Soul Data."

She started to walk in the general direction of the front desk, where two female Navis sat behind a virtual desk all day, taking calls and making appointments. Rockman did not know their names, but everybody called them "the twins"; they were colored white and back and were an exact mirror of one another.

One of them noticed Nanette. "Trinity! Giving the tour?"

"Yep!"

"And so… these two?" the other asked.

"Not sure yet. Roll-chan, Meiru-chan, I'd like you to meet Yin and Yang."

Roll giggled. "What cute names! They fit you very well!"

"Yes…" one sighed.

"…we get that a lot," the other finished.

"They are another of Newell-hakase's experiments. The idea was to take complete Soul Data, split it in two, and then let the halves grow back to full size. He was hoping the halves would be able to grow back to their original sizes faster than normal, giving him a kind of two-for-one effect, but… In the end, it wasn't fast enough to be profitable. Plus, each time you split the Data you're just making a clone, not an original Navi." Nanette turned away from the desk. "So we gave up on that pretty quickly. Next, we trie—"

"Ahem," one coughed.

"No good-bye?" asked the other.

"O-oh!" Nanette peeped. She bowed deeply. "I am glad to have seen you today. I will try and visit later so we may have a proper chat." As she stood back up, her body relaxed. "So take it easy, mmkay?"

"Mmkay!" Yin and Yang chorused, imitating her slight accent.

"Now then," Nana smiled, "onwards!

--

The next server did not have any Navis in it, but instead was filled with rows and rows of long glass tubes that were sealed at both ends. Many of the tubes were glowing brightly.

"Welcome to the Nursery!" Nanette whispered with a smile. "This is where I'm usually at."

"What are all of these?" Roll whispered, gesturing at the tubes.

Nanette laughed. "Oh sorry dears, you don't need to whisper in here. Just with the name and the atmosphere, I always feel like I should. Come get a closer look." She walked up to the nearest tube and hugged it. Her arms only went about halfway around the glass, but she did not seem to care. "Helloooo little ones," she cooed. "How are you today?"

Behind the glass, there was a bright sphere of pixilated light. It swirled and shifted constantly, and every several seconds a few pixels would reflect and glint a different color of the rainbow.

"How pretty!" gasped Meiru. "What is it?"

Rockman knew the answer, but Netto beat him to it. "It's Soul Data," he said, smiling in recognition.

"So this is what Roll looked like before she had a body?"

"Sure did, hon!" Nana nodded.

"Why…" Rockman squinted. He knew what he was looking at, and had therefore noticed a strange detail. "Why are there two?"

"Two?" asked Roll.

"Look there," pointed Nanette, "going around the bigger one."

Sure enough, there was a smaller ball of light tumbling around the bigger one. Rockman thought it looked like a fragment kept breaking off the big one and rejoining… but if Nanette said there were two, then there were two separate pieces.

"Our next idea was to let two Souls develop side-by-side. That also turned out to be a flop; with splitting we got identical twins like Yin and Yang, and with co-development you get a sort of fraternal twin. They look different, but share certain attributes personality traits."

"Do they develop any more quickly?" Rockman asked.

"Nope," Nanette sighed. "Have you met Lloyd down in communications? The conjoined-twin-Navi that thinks he's only one person?" She laughed at the face he and Roll made. "Yeah. He's the reason we abandoned the idea of co-development… But it gave us our next idea, which turned out to be a turning point. What we have in these tubes here is Newell-hakase's greatest achievement, and it is currently the way IPC produces about 80% of its custom Navis."

"Whoa, that much?" Netto asked.

Rockman was impressed, too. Once again he wondered why he'd never even heard of any of this.

"Yep! It's a new technique known as "Soul Shadowing". Basically, you let a newly created Soul hang out with a more complete one. The smaller one kinda… well "feeds" sounds bad; it's more of a mutalistic thing. They kind of share with one another, and it really speeds up the development of the smaller one. Once it gets big enough the first Soul is removed, usually to become a finished Navi, and another, smaller Soul gets added to share with the Soul that just grew big. It's a cyclic process, so once you get a cycle started it's really easy to keep going."

"Well that's creative," Rockman mused, "but why not put a bunch together, like a torrent file? Even if it you don't have a lot downloaded, you can still share what you have with someone who has less."

"We tried that, but it doesn't work so well. At large numbers the Souls start to clump together and lose their individuality, and larger Souls will start to eat the real small ones…" Nanette grimaced. "It's not such a pretty picture. We've tried a variety of small numbers, but so far two seems to work best."

"How long does it take to make a complete Navi with this method?" he asked.

"We start out by creating a little seed of Soul Data… that takes about a week, and then it goes into the tube. It spends about five to six months as a little brother, and another five to six as a big brother. After that it gets moved into a Framing Capsule, which… well, it's another process that takes a month or two."

"So rather than taking two years, it takes a bit over one," Netto finished for her. "Half the time with such a simple idea! Why couldn't we have thought of it, Rockman? We could have made so much moneeey…"

From somewhere outside of Rockman's view of the real world, Newell-hakase called out, "I don't actually see much of that, junior."

Netto mumbled something about his new car, and Rockman rolled his eyes. He turned back to the glowing tube… and suddenly had to stifle a laugh.

Roll was leaning towards the tube with her butt stuck out comically, and was squinting at the Soul Data with the utmost concentration. "I still can't… gah! How big is the little one in this tube? He's hard to see!" she complained.

"Uh…" Nana twisted her face up in thought. "What tube is this? Number…uh…" Giving up, she tapped a funny black symbol near the bottom of the glass. A large translucent monitor display popped up in front of the tube. "036-42! So this guy just got put in last week… he's a real little baby."

"Aww…" said Roll and Meiru in unison.

Roll laid her right palm gently on the glass. "That's so swee—ooh!" The bright sphere at the top of the tube suddenly got dimmer. "I didn't hurt them, did I?!" she gasped, yanking her hand away.

Nana grabbed Roll's hand and put it back on the glass. "No, they're fine. Wait and watch."

Again, the bright sphere dimmed. A second later, a small light came whizzing down and bumped into the glass where Roll's hand was. "Oh!"

"Careful, baby!" Nana laughed. "Small Souls automatically attract to larger ones. This little guy here can tell that you're a custom Navi, and he thinks you've come to share with him."

"Oh my gosh," Roll breathed. She looked at Rockman and her face broke out into a huge smile. "That's adorable!"

The glow from the tube made her smile seem brighter. Unable to resist her cheerfulness, he returned the smile. "He really likes you, Roll-chan."

Roll put her other hand next to the first with a delighted squeal. "Hello there! Hiiii. How are you? My name is Roll-chan… hehee…"

Rockman stepped up beside her to get a closer look. Really, this Soul looked just like regular old Soul Data. He didn't understand why women thought smaller versions of normal things were cute. Roll was completely enamored with the tiny Soul; she was now moving her hand around on the glass, gently encouraging it to follow her.

…It was a shame she didn't want a baby Navi; she would be such a good mother.

"That brings me to my next point," Nanette said. "Do you see how the little brother prefers Roll over the big brother? Small souls not only attract to bigger ones, but to the largest one they can find. This is similar to what Rockman suggested before about torrent files; it's better to share with somebody who has a complete file, rather than someone who can't give you all of it."

"Oh," said Roll, looking a little downcast, "that's why he likes me?"

"Partially, yes. But do you see where I'm going?"

"You tried to have a little brother share with a finished Navi?" Rockman suggested.

"Yep!" Nanette nodded. "We got Yin… or Yang, I really don't remember which, to connect to one of these tubes and nurture a Soul through its entire development."

"How did that work?" Roll asked.

Nanette shrugged. "Good and bad. She was connected to it for about eight months, but we still had to put the Soul in a Framing Capsule for a month to finish it. There are some things you just can't share. And plus, you know, she was stuck at SciLabs for eight months. The way she was connected she couldn't move more than two yards away from the tube, so we dragged her desk up here and she lived in her own special little server."

"Ew!" Roll grimaced. "That doesn't sound very fun."

"She didn't mind too much, seeing as she normally sits behind the same desk for hours and hours every day, but… No, I wouldn't like it either," Nanette agreed. "Can you imagine making that large-scale? You'd have a room full of immobile Navis all connected to creepy glowing machines… that's horror movie material right there."

"Why not make a smaller tube?" Rockman asked. "One that she could carry with her?"

"Our thought exactly!" Nanette bit her lip, but it did little her hide her excited giggle. "Come with me."

--

Roll followed a demure two paces behind Rockman back into Newell-hakase's server. She figured the tour must be nearly over. It had been interesting, but somewhat confusing; why had Netto wanted them to take this tour in the first place? With the way Nana was smiling, Roll knew there had to be some sort of twist coming.

Rockman stopped suddenly, and Roll nearly bumped into him. She peered around his body, and saw what had made him stop. Before, the middle of the room had been empty; now, it was filled with a large virtual table, equipment, and three Navis. The Navi sitting on the table caught her attention the most. She was a cute, very purple humanoid Navi (very similar to Roll in a few ways), but… was fat. _Very _fat.

"Hyacinth!" Nanette shouted happily.

Now that the Navi was looking their direction, Roll tried to stare a little bit more discretely. There was something about her weight… about how she carried it… Roll gasped, realization hitting her hard. "She's pregnant!"

Rockman and Meiru made almost identical noises of shock.

"W-what?" Rockman stuttered.

"Baby Navis don't need to develop nearly as much as full grown ones…" Roll reasoned out loud (more for her own benefit than Rockman's), "and size-wise they're much smaller."

Nanette shooed the two NormNav1 away from the table and grabbed Hyacinth's hand warmly. "So they can get everything they need from their host while fitting conveniently inside of said host," she finished. "Host is such an ugly word, but mother isn't quite right either… We've started to call them surrogates. Baby Navis normally take about a year to make… but with surrogating, they're done in _three months._"

"Three?!" Rockman gasped.

"You'd best believe it!" Nanette chuckled. "Fast, cheap, and easy!" Her face fell. "Oh… oh that doesn't sound right, does it? Even if it _is_ similar to human pregnancy in a few ways, it's not…" She shook her head, as though that could negate what she'd just said. "Anyway! This lovely surrogate here is Hyacinth, and she's due… Er, how did your examination go?"

"Newell-hakase said I have one more week to go!" Hyacinth beamed.

"Yaaay!" Nanette cheered, giving her a hug.

What had started out as a shocked excitement somewhere near Roll's stomach turned into lead and sank. She knew what was coming: they were going to offer to let her be a surrogate. She'd never heard of this before, which meant that Newell-hakase was still keeping it under wraps because he didn't have a patent yet. He must be looking for volunteers inside of or related to SciLabs to try it out…

Rockman knew that she was a little jealous of Meiru, but it was obvious now that he had made Netto his confidante. That was why Netto had offered to buy her a baby Navi and then gone through all the trouble to get them here. "Netto-san…" She wasn't sure how to say no without sounding rude. He was trying so hard to make her happy.

Surprisingly, it was Rockman who objected first. "Netto-kun, I see where you're going with this, but… I thought… you didn't want a random Navi for your baby. I thought you wanted something special."

"Oh!" Meiru gasped. She smiled at her husband. "That's very sweet of you, dear."

"It will be special!" Netto laughed. "Where do you think its core programming will come from?"

"You said you didn't have time to write one…" Rockman frowned.

"Write one? Why should I do that, when you two have perfectly good ones?"

Roll was unable to stop her hands from flying to her beet red face. On the upside, though, they clamped her mouth shut before she could make any funny noises.

"W-what do you mean?" Rockman asked, incredulous.

Roll knew; it was faster to re-use bits of coding than writing something original, and you could choose attributes that you liked about one Navi to incorporate into a new one. In fact, it was somewhat common for baby Navis to be created using the code of two Navis… kind of a virtual "family". She'd known that ever since she started researching baby Navis, but had never brought it up; she was terrified that Rockman would offer to do it with her.

"So…" Rockman said slowly, looking between Netto and Nanette, "Roll and I…"

"Could have a baby together!" Nanette chirped, helping Hyacinth off the table. "You two would make such a cute baby, please say you will! We're looking for volunteers, you know, and—"

Rockman sent her a curious glance, and Roll quickly looked away, trying not to go any more red than she already was. "Roll-chan…" he said quietly enough so nobody else would hear it over Nanette's continued ranting, "that would be… close to Meiru-chan, wouldn't it?"

She returned his stare, but hers was stony. She knew perfectly well what he meant by that: _'it's as close as you're ever going to get'_.

"No!" Roll shouted. The volume of it surprised everyone, including herself. She went red and stammered, "I mean… no thank you. I… just because Meiru… I don't…"

Everyone was staring at her. And everyone looked… disappointed. She shrunk under their combined gaze and suddenly had to fight back a powerful urge to cry. This was what she wanted more than anything else in the world. Now all of sudden, everyone in the room was not only offering her dreams to her on a silver platter, but _wanted _her to do it … and she couldn't say yes. It would be for all the wrong reasons.

"Roll-chan?" Meiru asked softly, "Is something wrong?"

"N-no…" Roll didn't trust herself to speak. They would want an explanation if she rejected their offer, and it was an explanation she did not want to give. Shouting out "because Rockman doesn't love me!" would… just be absolutely the worst…

…especially if Rockman tried to deny it; it would be a lie, and that would hurt even more than the truth.

Roll turned away from everyone, finding it impossible to keep a straight face. "I'm sorry!" she whispered. She logged out into her PET, and shut the path behind her with a firewall.

--


	8. Decisions

Commence the New Chapter Happy Dance!

A) I'm lazy. B) I crochet. (visit my deviantart and you'll see what I mean) C) I've been working on future chapters to help prevent such a long hiatus again. But mostly A) I'm lazy. I'm very sorry.

The problem with this story is that there is no action_. _It's all talk-talk-talk, which is hard to break up when all you need is for people to _talk. _Hopefully future events will rectify this.

Thank you all for your continued patience and your reviews!

When you beg Capcom to make a Dash 3, you should also thank them for the EXE series.

--

"I thought you said Roll wanted a baby."

"She does."

"Then why'd she run away?"

"I'm not sure…"

"You're lying."

Rockman made eye contact with Netto for the first time since they'd left SciLabs. "Netto-kun…" he scowled.

Netto returned the look. "I'm not angry at her for leaving, I'm just confused." He set his PET down on the living room coffee table with a sigh. "She almost sounded offended. I thought she'd be happy… jump on this chance…"

"I thought the same thing," Rockman admitted.

"Then why's she still hiding in her PET?"

Rockman exhaled softly, the way he always did when he had trouble thinking of how to word something. "She's… not jealous of the baby, but jealous of Meiru-chan. Of the experience."

Netto blinked at this revelation. "Oh." He looked to Meiru, sitting on their tan recliner. Did she know this?

Meiru shrugged, and continued to plow her way through a piece of pie; on the whole, she didn't seem too concerned about the situation.

"Mm," his Navi nodded. "That's why I'm confused; if she became a surrogate, it'd be almost the same as Meiru-chan, right?"

"I guess not entirely," Netto frowned, "'Cause she would have said yes if it were the same."

"Netto-kun…" Netto couldn't see Rockman from how he'd set down his PET, but could tell from the Navi's voice that he was fidgeting, "I'm worried."

Normally, Netto would laugh that Rockman worried far too much for his own good. This was a prime opportunity to tease him about Roll, too… But Rockman had a note of sincerity in his voice that Netto couldn't ignore.

"Let's think, then. How is surrogating different from actually being pregnant?"

"It produces a Navi instead of a baby," Rockman deadpanned.

Netto shook his head, not amused. "I'm not looking for physical differences; Roll is a woman, and with women it's always something emotional."

"You're going to blame this on her being too emotional? That's stereotypical and _rude_, Netto-kun."

"Sheesh, I'm just trying to help…"

"Well you're not doing a very good job."

Netto sent a glare towards his PET. "What put you in such a bad mood?"

Rockman said nothing; Netto had been expecting an apology, so the silence unnerved him.

"If you're so worried, go find a way to break through her firewall! She's not a pro at security, you could get past if you really tried."

"That," Meiru said around the pie in her mouth, "would also be rude." She swallowed. "You can't just force your way into her PET."

"Fine! If we can't _ask_ her what's wrong, then we have to figure it out ourselves," he grumbled back. Rockman made a noise of dissent, so he added, "What? You'd prefer to sit here and worry?"

"No…"

"Then think! You must know something; you told me you two had an "understanding", right?"

Again, Rockman said nothing. Again, it troubled Netto. Rockman rarely came out and said exactly what he meant… but one way or another, he always told Netto everything. They shared everything with one another. What was Rockman trying to accomplish with his crabby attitude?

"Why," Netto asked slowly, "do I get the feeling that you're mad at me too?"

"What?" Rockman answered too quickly. "I'm not angry!"

"Mmhmm," he snorted.

"Really!"

"Rockman…"

Another "how-do-I-say-this" sigh came from the PET's speakers. "I wouldn't… call it mad…"

"Then what _would_ you call it?" Netto asked, fighting to keep his growing annoyance out of his voice.

"Netto-kun…" Rockman stumbled, "did… you always plan to combine our core programs? Roll-chan's and mine?"

"Of course!" he frowned back. "Why? What's wrong with that? That way, both you and I will—" With a shock that he could almost physically feel, Netto suddenly understood. "Oh. I never asked _you_, did I?"

"No."

He'd been so concerned about making Roll happy that he'd forgotten about Rockman's involvement in his plan. "Okay then: you wanna have a baby with Roll?" It was blunt and a bit late, but better late than never, right?

Rockman was full of surprises tonight; instead of the flustered splutter Netto expected (which secretly meant yes), he muttered, "My opinion doesn't matter anymore. Roll doesn't want to."

Netto ran a hand through his hair in frustration, pulling out a few hairs in the process. "Now we're back where we started, Rockman! Yes it matters; if you don't want to be a Papa, then Roll won't want a baby."

"But I told her I would!" Rockman said, his voice growing in volume until it was almost a shout. "I offered! If she had said yes to Newell-hakase, I would have shared my core program!"

Netto reached a hand out and picked up his PET. He regarded the ruffled Navi inside and slowly tried to put the pieces together. The heart of this problem was that Roll was upset she couldn't have what Meiru had. But not just the baby; Roll was jealous of the experience. What was it that Meiru had besides the baby…?

"Rockman," Meiru spoke up, "Roll doesn't want your core program."

"Yes she does! She needs it so we can have a baby together!" Rockman snapped back, something he rarely did to Meiru.

"No," she shook her head, "she doesn't want that either."

"Then what _does_ she want?!" Rockman cried, spreading his arms wide in either a plea for help or frustration. "What do you have that she doesn't?"

Meiru seemed to think it over for a bit, picking at piecrust crumbs with her fork as she did so. "You're thinking about this the wrong way, Rockman. Most of time… Well…" Netto could tell that she knew the answer, but was reluctant to share it. "Women don't have children just because they _can_, they do it because they _want_ to."

"Well… yeah," Netto sighed at his wife. That was an obvious statement. "But Roll wants to, or as least we think she does, so what's stopping her?"

"Women…" It was obvious she was picking her words carefully, but Rockman (now pacing back and forth) seemed oblivious to her delicacy. "Any man can give a woman children, but most women will choose a man to have children _with_. They do it together."

"What?! Are you saying that Roll doesn't want Rockman to be the father?" Netto burst out, stunned by this possibility. "But Roll's always had a thing f— er…"

Meiru was making frantic hand gestures and mouthing "no".

What was wrong with saying that in front of Rockman? Roll liked Rockman; she had for years, and it had always been obvious. Netto teased Rockman about it all the time. Granted, Roll didn't jump all over him like she used to, but Netto still had enough fodder to make Rockman go red in the face whenever he so chose. There was no point in denying it.

"I'm not saying that… I didn't say that, but…" Meiru fumbled. "What I'm really trying to say is that she can't make this decision alone. It's just as important that you decide what _you _want, Rockman."

Netto fought back an "oh". The last horse (aptly named "Netto's Brain") crossed the finish line; he knew what Meiru had.

_Me._

That was it: what Meiru had was a husband! She wasn't just having a baby, she was starting a family. Rockman was offering to help Roll get a baby, but he was not offering to be its Papa. Not in the way Roll wanted, at least. He would take responsibility for it and help raise it (and probably enjoy it), but the three of them would not be a _family_; they would be together for the baby's sake, not because they had chosen to be together.

"But… why should what I want matter now?" Rockman looked lost; maybe Netto wasn't the last horse after all. "I'm not the one who's locked up in a PET. I'm not the one who needs help."

Meiru chuckled at this. "Roll doesn't need help; she just needs a little time alone. She'll come out when she's ready."

"How will being alone help her? Roll-chan…" Rockman stopped his pacing. "She's upset, and I know it's my fault. I can't just leave her alone like that…"

It was now Netto's turn to be cautious about his words; he could not tell Rockman what he knew. Roll was hiding because she couldn't tell Rockman why she'd said no to surrogating without having to admit her feelings... and knowing Rockman as well as he did, if Roll said "I love you" there was a very good chance Rockman would feel obligated to return that emotion, regardless of his actual feelings. Roll didn't want him to live a lie, and neither did Netto.

"Why do you want to help her?" he asked.

"Because I'm worr—"

"_Why _are you worried about her?" Netto demanded. It was obvious he and Roll had some sort of… "understanding", even if it was just a friendly partnership. Rockman tried to play it off like it was nothing, but after stumbling through his own relationship, Netto could see the signs. Whatever Rockman chose (friendship or more), he had to actually _chose_ it; Roll knew he might say no, but the longer he said nothing, the more she would get her hopes up… and the more hurt she would get when the time came. It wasn't fair to her to drag it out like this. "If you can't decide _why_ you feel the need to get into her PET, then you shouldn't try."

The whole purpose of his scheming with Newell-hakase was to force Rockman and Roll closer together. It was similar to what Rockman had done to him and Meiru, so Netto had kind of assumed that things would turn out the same happy way for Rockman. But they weren't turning out the same way. Despite his good intentions, his plan was driving Rockman and Roll apart; he wasn't helping Roll any, he was hurting her. This needed to end soon, one way or the other.

"I've already told you! Roll-chan is unhappy because of me!" Rockman said. "Meiru-chan is right: Roll-chan thinks that if she says yes to becoming a surrogate, she'll be forcing me to do something I don't want to."

"Partially, yes," Meiru frowned, "but that's not quite…"

"But if I can get into her PET, if I can talk to her," Rockman interrupted, "I can tell her that I'm willing to have a baby with her. I know it is a big commitment, but if it makes her happy, I am willing to do it."

Commitment; now there was an odd choice of words. That _was _what Roll wanted, but not in the sense Rockman had just described. Netto couldn't think how to tell his Navi this, but was saved the trouble by Meiru.

"'Willing to do it'?" Meiru quoted. She narrowed her eyes as though insulted, and clinked her plate down on the coffee table. "Rockman, you make it sound like this is a sacrifice on your part. Is that how you view it? I just told you, making that kind of sacrifice for Roll won't make her happy! People have children because they _want_ to have children, not because they're able to undertake the responsibility."

"You and Netto-kun didn't want children," Rockman shot back. "You didn't think you could handle it yet, but here you are now, almost three months away from having something you thought you didn't want, and you're happy."

Netto gaped at this Navi. "What the hell, Rockman!" He gave his PET a good shake. Rockman was never anything but polite to Meiru, so his current attitude was both a shock and way out of line. "I know you're upset, but that's no reason to take it out on my wife!"

"I'm not trying to be rude!" Rockman said, his voice rising. "I'm just trying to say that it doesn't matter what I want; a baby will make Roll-chan happy."

"But will it make _you_ happy?"

Meiru had asked that question a few times now, and Rockman had yet to answer. Netto had no idea why Rockman was avoiding it; it had a simple answer: yes. Given the same opportunity as his brother, Rockman would surely want children, and the sooner he admitted to it, the sooner this argument—

"I'm touched, Netto-kun! I was not aware that you cared about my opinion."

It was hard to believe that the Navi with a hard voice and insincere smile in his hands was Rockman. "Of… of course I care!" Netto said heatedly. "What's wrong with you? I've always cared about your opinion!"

Rockman nodded. "Yes, yes… which is why this is the first time you have asked for it."

"I have too asked you what… you…"

_He'd been so concerned about making Roll happy that he'd forgotten about Rockman's involvement in his plan. "Okay then: you wanna have a baby with Roll?" It was blunt and a bit late, but better late than never, right?_

Netto let his lie of a sentence trail off lamely. He'd been planning to get Roll (and Rockman) a baby for almost two months… but the first time he'd asked Rockman about it was not quite five minutes ago.

"I really do care, Rockman," he started up again, much more subdued this time. "I just… I just never asked." Truth be told, Netto had never asked because he'd already known the answer… at least, he thought he'd known.

"You never ask!" Rockman spat. "And when you do, you ignore my answer! You make all of my decisions for me, because you assume you know what I want. You think that you know me so well that you don't need to ask."

Rockman was right. Absolutely right, but to hear him shout it with such anger stung Netto deeply.

"But… Rockman… I _do_ know you that well, don't I?" Netto whispered. He remembered his fifth birthday, and remembered unwrapping the present that was Rockman. He didn't have a single memory earlier than that, so it was almost as if he'd had no life before Rockman. They'd grown up together right since that very beginning, often with only each other for company. "We… we grew up together. I'm not trying to make your decisions for you, but…"

"But you are," Rockman finished, turning his back and taking a few steps away from the view screen.

"Yeah, because I know you!" Netto repeated. "When I first suggested that you buy a baby Navi like Jasmine did, you seemed enthusiastic about it!" It was true; though initially Rockman had doubts about it, he'd warmed up to the idea after a few days.

"I thought it would make Roll-chan happy. That doesn't mean I myself was eager about it."

"But you… we…" Netto was floundering now. He'd assumed that Rockman would come to his senses about his feelings towards Roll. He'd assumed that the two of them would be happy. He'd assumed that Rockman would love to have a child, so that he and Netto could both be fathers… and more importantly, so that they could pair their child and Navi just like they had been at the age of five. Apparently, he was wrong on all counts. "Rockman… I thought…"

He and Rockman kept a change jar. In reality it was neither change nor in a jar, but was an online bank account in which they kept any spare or frugally saved money. When the sum got large enough, they would buy a good battle chip with it. They could never agree on what chip to get, though, and each time spent days arguing over it. Netto felt that he should choose, seeing as he was the one who chose what chips got used in battle, while Rockman felt that he should be the once to decide because he was the one who saved the money in the first place and was the one who would (with the exception of Cross Fusion) actually use the chip in battle.

"Rockman," Netto said slowly. "I wanted to make a bet with you: whoever had his kid first would win our change jar money." Though Rockman had his back turned, Netto could see him stiffen; control of the change jar had never been relinquished to a single person before. It was a colossal prize. "You could win it so easy! You can just go out and buy a baby Navi at any time, while I have to wait until October."

Rockman's shoulders twitched and Netto could tell his Navi had crossed his arms.

"But I did that intentionally." Netto put a single finger on his PET screen next to Rockman. "I wanted you to win. I know we've all been doing this for Roll-chan… but really, I thought it would make _you_ happy. I thought you would like to be a Papa… And our children could be best friends, like you an' me, right?"

Rockman was silent. Netto cast a desperate glance up at his wife, who gave him a sad shrug. If Rockman said no after that heartfelt confession, it was unlikely that anything else could change his mind.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to, Rockman," Netto said, trying to be considerate but unable to stop disappointment from welling up inside of him. "But at least… I can count on you to be a good uncle, right?"

At this, Rockman turned halfway around. "Uncle?"

"Yeah! For my kid. When he's born." Meiru opened her mouth, and Netto hastily added, "Or she."

"Netto-kun…" Rockman whipped his torso away again. "Why do you always… You…" His fists clenched at his sides. "When will you realize that… that I'm…"

When Rockman's clenched hands started to shake, Netto felt the need to interject. "Rockman? You okay?"

"No!" was the angry reply. "Netto-kun, I'm sorry but I'm not who you think I am!"

Netto blinked. "What?"

"And regardless of whatever you two say," Rockman continued, ignoring his Operator, "Roll-chan does not need to be left alone. I know… I'm responsible for her running away, and…" he gave an angry huff, "and I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone, Netto-kun!"

Before Netto could stutter out another "what", Rockman was gone. Confused (and more than a little hurt), he stared at his empty PET.

"Netto?" Meiru ventured.

With a loud sigh, Netto tossed his PET onto the coffee table and flopped back into the couch. If Rockman didn't want to talk, then they wouldn't talk.

"Hey," he inclined his head towards his wife, "how's the pie?"

"Pretty good," she answered. "Would you like a piece?"

"No," he sighed again, "for once, I don't feel like any."

--

Roll was pacing when he found her unexpectedly inside the bedroom computer. He knew what she was doing; whenever she was nervous about something, she liked to pace and repeat "I can do it!" over and over. It didn't look too effective today, though. She kept walking towards the glowing portal to the internet, like she wanted to run away, and then turning suddenly and muttering what were probably encouragements under her breath.

Rockman watched her repeat this cycle twice before she noticed him.

"O-oh! Rockman! I didn't… I…"

Somehow, Rockman was a little disappointed; he'd been hoping to work off some of his frustration at Netto by tearing though a firewall.

"I'm sorry Roll-chan, I didn't mean to sneak up on you," he apologized.

"No… It's alright." Roll fidgeted for a moment, then blurted, "Rockman! I… I didn't mean to run away today. I just… didn't want to be rude and say no in front of everybody. But running away was ruder… and so…" She bowed deeply. "I'm sorry!"

So _that_ was what she was working up the courage to say.

"Don't apologize!" Rockman said, flapping his hands at her to get back up. "It's Netto-kun's fault. I knew he was planning something, but…" He rubbed the back of his helmet with a small chuckle. "Let's just say that today was a big surprise for me, too."

Roll was standing straight again, but was having trouble keeping eye contact. "So… you weren't involved?"

"No. I may have helped put the idea into his head, but I had nothing to do with today. Netto-kun never asked me if I wanted…" he faltered, "any of that." Really, the main reason he came here was to find Roll, and he was happy she was put of her PET… but now…

He couldn't lie to himself; half the reason he left his PET was to get away from Netto. "He wasn't considering my feelings at all." It was spiteful, but much easier to say when Netto couldn't hear it.

"O-oh." Roll looked shocked at his sudden mood swing. It was also likely that she'd never seen him insult Netto. "No, he was thinking of me. I'm grateful for—"

"No," Rockman interrupted. "No, it's not you. He thinks it was you, but…." It was so hard to put a word to this emotion; mad wasn't it, upset wasn't quite right… Overwhelmed was a good approximation for now. Regardless, he needed to share a bit of it with Roll; she at least deserved to know Netto's true intentions.

"Rockman?"

Rockman took a deep, fortifying breath. "I want to talk with you."

"Aren't we sort of… doing that already?" Roll smiled nervously. "Here; let's sit down." She moved quickly to push one of their red ottomans around the chess table to join it with the second one as a makeshift couch. She sat down on one, and patted the seat next to her.

Reluctantly, he sat down. He now had a good view of the glowing exit into the internet, and much like Roll a minute earlier, felt a fleeting desire to just run away.

Like he stopped her then, she stopped him now: she sighed "One-hundred-fifty-two" and slid over so that their hips touched. Confused, he said nothing as she reached out and put a hand on top of the one he had perched on a knee.

"Rockman… you're sitting so stiffly. Is something wrong?"

He forced himself to relax. "No."

"I'm not Netto-san," she murmured softly, "but I listen just as well as anyone. If you want t—"

"Netto-kun's not doing this for you," Rockman interrupted again. "He's doing it for me."

Rockman wanted—no, _needed_ to tell someone this, someone that wasn't Netto or Papa. Someone who was impartial about his origins and knew what it was like to be a Navi. Roll was all of these things.

"A while ago, Netto-kun asked me how I felt about him having a baby. I said I was happy for him, but… that's not what he was asking. He wanted to know if I was jealous." He paused, unable to hold back a fond smile. "He always asks me things like that. It makes me happy, knowing that he wants to include me in everything, but at the same time it's… frustrating, because I know he can't."

"It's not a matter if you can or can't," Roll spoke up. "You can want something even if you can't have it." She nodded, and Rockman knew she was speaking from recent experience. "Netto-san is convinced that you should be able to have all the things he does… but do you want them?"

Rockman shifted in his seat; Meiru had asked that exact same question, and he could answer Roll about as well as he had Meiru. Regardless, he decided to make another attempt at it. "That day, Netto-kun asked me if I would want to be a Papa someday... and I laughed at him."

"Because you didn't think it was possible, right?" Roll guessed shrewdly. "So today proved you wrong."

"Yes. Whenever I tell Netto-kun that I can't do something he can, he takes it as a challenge to find a way to make it work."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Roll commented. "It's just a way for him to get closer to you."

Rockman shook his head. "It doesn't matter how hard he tries; I'm not a real person. I'm a program. I don't and oftentimes _can't_ do the same things that he does! Everything that I am, everything that I feel… it's not real."

Roll made no motion or sound at this proclamation, but he felt her hand tighten around his.

"_I'm_ not real," he continued. "I'm not who he thinks I am. I'm not his brother, but he always insists upon asking if I would want to be. And today… for the first time I thought… that maybe…"

Rockman couldn't bring himself to finish his sentence; instead, he pulled his hand away from Roll. It didn't matter what he wanted. It had never mattered. Ever. For anything. Even if Netto wanted Rockman to have all the things he had, and even if Rockman himself wanted those things…

"It doesn't matter what I want; I can't have it. I'm not… and I can't be Saito."

A pink hand lifted towards his face.

"E-eh?!" Rockman flinched away from the intrusion into his personal space. By reflex he brushed her hand away, though maybe with a little more force than necessary.

Roll gave him an offended frown.

"No, it's okay," he said, suddenly embarrassed. As peeved as he was at Netto, this was not the topic he'd come here to discuss. It was almost amazing how Roll knew just what to ask to get him to divulge a little more and more. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to share all of my problems with you; I just wanted you to know Netto-kun's intentions. He's subconsciously doing this for m—"

Roll punched him in the arm.

"Aie! W-what was that for?!"

"Did that hurt?" she asked.

"Yes," he complained, rubbing the spot. It wasn't painful enough to warrant rubbing, but Roll still had her fists up and that seemed like the best answer to avoid another hit.

Contrary to her sudden violent behavior, Roll put a hand gently his cheek. "And this," she murmured, "can you feel this?"

"Yes?" he said, confusion turning his answer into a question.

"Does it feel real?"

He stared at her. She stared right back, unwavering. After a moment of silence, he exhaled, "Yes."

"Then why does it matter if it's not? I feel it; you feel it. Doesn't that make it real, at least between us?"

Roll didn't care who was _supposed_ to be; she only knew him as Rockman. And, like him, knew what it was like to live only in a virtual world. She understood his fears better than anybody else.

Trying his best to keep his voice steady, he answered, "I'd like to think so."

"Then think so!" she admonished, breaking out into a smile. "If I am happy and you are happy, that's all that matters!"

It was such a simple answer. To some it might seem like an easy way out, but with Roll it was just an honest, heartfelt view on life.

"There's nothing wrong with being jealous," Roll stated. "It's true, we can't have the same life as our Operators, but… we have our own lives. We share our own reality, and who's to say that it's not just as good? I enjoy who I am and where I am, and I'm glad that you are who you are and that you are here with me. I wouldn't change anything for the world."

He felt a surge of gratitude towards Roll. She only knew him as Rockman… and _wanted_ him to be only Rockman. Unlike Mama, Papa, and Netto, she had no expectations. Somehow, that felt surprisingly liberating.

Rockman shook his head and returned a faint smile. "Roll-chan… I came here expecting to force my way through a firewall. Why is it that every time I try to cheer you up, you're the one who ends up making _me _feel better?"

"I'm guess I'm just a naturally optimistic person!" Roll giggled. "O-oh, but…" She lowered her gaze to the floor. "I recall telling you once that I couldn't be optimistic… I'm sorry; I suppose that was a lie."

Rockman couldn't help but chuckle at her. "Of course it was! You're such a bright, cheerful person, how could you be anything _but_ optimistic? That's what I like about you."

Roll gave the floor a timid smile. "Ah, really? I don't know…"

It was strange to see her bashful; she had her legs crossed at the ankle, her posture was straight but still somehow curving away from him, and her cheeks were a pale pink. The old Roll jumped at compliments… so why was this one acting so demure? Rockman couldn't help but notice that her hands, primly folded in her lap, were shaking like a leaf in the wind. Was something wrong?

"Roll-chan, it's true. Why…" he exhaled, fighting to put his concerns into words. "You told me that you don't do anything important. How can you think that? You do a lot of important things, but when I try to thank you, you ignore me."

Roll gave him a confused look. "I don't ignore you. I just… don't think the things I do are as great as you say they are."

"Little things can be just as great as big ones."

"Rockman," Roll scowled, "you and Netto-san have the saved the world… _more than once_. How can anything I do compare to that?"

Rockman recoiled a bit. "I don't… consider myself a hero. I don't like that title… it gives people false assumptions."

"What do you mean?"

"Netto-kun and I...." he tilted back to gaze at the endless, soft-blue background that made up their sky, "it's true we've done some amazing things, but that makes people think we can do anything."

Roll made a small noise of dissent. "Nobody is invincible."

"See?" Rockman leaned over to nudge Roll, pleased at her objection. "You understand that! It's simple, and you might not think that it's anything important, but to me that's something great. Did you know that you're the only one who tells me to be careful anymore? Even Netto-kun forgets to do that sometimes; he's become somewhat overconfident over the years."

"Eh?" Roll frowned. "Of course I tell you to be careful; you and Netto-san always manage to get yourselves into inordinate amounts of trouble!"

"N-no… Well _yes_, we do, but that's not what…" Rockman felt himself start to turn pink; this wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. "What I mean to say is… you're the only one who sincerely worries about me, Roll-chan. You care."

Roll's eyes shot open so wide that her eyebrows were lost under the brim of her helmet. "O-o-of course I do! It's because… you know… it's just…"

"Because," Rockman chuckled, finishing her sentence, "you, unlike the rest of the world, know that I am not perfect. You are fully aware what a small mistake could do in a dangerous situation. You know I make these mistakes, and because of this… each day, no matter what it is I'm doing, you sincerely hope that I come home safely. Nobody else does that."

He glanced down. Roll's hands, once merely folded, were now clenched in a vice grip. With a sense of reverse dejà-vu, he placed a hand softly on top of hers. "Thank you, Roll-chan."

Roll swallowed hard. She one deep breath in, one out, and in a voice amazingly devoid of any inflection asked, "Netto-san doesn't care about you?"

Rockman shook his head. "I didn't say that; he does, but in a different way. I guess… what I'm trying to say is that you understand me in ways that he can't."

"I suppose that's true," she relented. "We have a different reality than our Operators, so it only makes sense that they don't understand it the same way we do."

"They don't, no," Rockman smiled kindly, "which is why I'm glad I have you to share it with me. You might not think it's much… but for me it makes a big difference."

Roll had said the pretty much exact same thing ("I like who I am, who you are, and our life together") not five minutes earlier, so her reaction (turning an ashen white color) was a shock.

"Roll-chan?!"

"Rockman…" Her whole body went stiff; he could tell she was fighting the desire to chew her fingers, tap her feet, or fidget in any of her usual nervous ways. "Rockman, why are you doing this now?"

"D-doing what now?"

"Being so nice!"

Since when was being nice considered a bad thing? Rockman took his hand back and frowned. "I just thought… you've been kind of sad lately. You cheer me up so often… so I thought…"

"What makes you think that I'm sad?" she snapped.

_I don't know… your behavior for the last five months?_

"Today at SciLabs… you ran away with hardly a word." Despite his misgivings on confronting her, there was no better way to get to the bottom of this than to confront her. He struggled to keep eye contact with her angry face. "I know you had your reasons for saying no, and I respect you decision. But even so… Surrogating is a lot like being pregnant. I know… that you're jealous of Meiru-chan, so saying no to that must have been hard."

"Even if I am… it doesn't mean…" Roll swiveled away so her back was facing him. "You don't understand."

That was the understatement of the year.

"You're right. I don't."

"Then why do you keep trying to?!" Roll sounded frustrated to the point of tears.

He'd come here to drag her out of her PET and make her feel better… and now she was about to cry.

"Because I care about you!" he shouted back. "Because no matter what I do these days, you always run away from me!" He gave an irritated huff. "I thought you might like some support through a difficult time, but you tell me that I'm doing too much and making you feel useless. I thought you wanted a baby, but you tell me no because it wouldn't be special… it wouldn't be "ours". When we were given that chance, I thought you might say yes to being a surrogate, but no! You didn't even say no to Netto-kun before you ran off! Roll-chan… I'm not…"

Roll was crying. He'd seen her cry only once or twice, but never like this. She was _crying._ Not just teary-eyed; full-blown crying. She had her face buried in her pink gloves, and her shoulders were shaking with each sharp intake of breath.

…and it was his fault. These weren't the tears he saw when he returned safely from a mission. They weren't the tears he saw when he was loosing a battle and in real danger. She was crying because he, Rockman, had hurt her. That simple fact tore a hole in his chest.

"Roll-chan… please don't cry, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. I didn't, I'm really sorry." Fighting fire with fire had been the wrong choice, but Rockman couldn't let the issue drop. Apologizing and letting her walk away without explaining anything would not solve any of their problems. "I respect your decision to not be a surrogate, but… I'm confused, and your behavior these last few months has me concerned."

"You don't… not really…" Roll's words were jagged with crying. "Just because I want a baby… doesn't mean… you have to pretend…"

"Pretend what? That I care?" He frowned. "I just told you that I appreciate you caring about me; why shouldn't I care about you back?"

"You're just… j-just saying that… b-bec…"

What was it going to take to get through to her?? In her defense, though, she was making an effort to listen; she hadn't run away yet.

"I'm saying it because it's true! How can you not see that?" Rockman sighed. Why did Roll, so good at spotting the good qualities in others, have so much trouble seeing her own? True, if an outsider were to compare their accomplishments in life it would be like holding a candle next to the sun, but… an outsider didn't know Roll like he did. An outsider wouldn't know all of the nuances that made her shine brighter than the sun. "You're nice, kind, polite, always cheerful," (their current situation being one of few exceptions), "very smart, clever, and thrifty, the best scanner I've ever seen, deadly with your arrows, better at Dimensional Bubbles than I am or could ever hope to be, better at…"

Somehow, it was hard to be embarrassed about admitting all of these things when Roll was crying so hard. These little compliments had been building up in the back of his mind since forever, really; he'd just never gotten around to telling her… or rather, the opportune moment had never presented itself.

Now seemed like an opportune time.

"You're better than me at normal, everyday life. You care about me in a way that nobody else does, and because of that you understand me in a way that nobody else does. Do you think I can ignore you after all of that?"

When had things changed so much? Roll was always so happy; now she wasn't. He, normally exhausted by her exuberance, missed it. He missed playing (and losing) Chess with her. He missed their conversations about anything and everything. He missed their little squabbles, and missed secretly watching and laughing at Netto and Meiru's squabbles. He missed her cheery waves goodbye and welcome homes. He even missed the mundane things, like organizing the household finances with her.

Somewhere along the line, she'd become a constant in his life. A constant which was suddenly _gone_, and it was driving him crazy.

"You…" he paused to swallow once, "are an important person to me."

Slowly, very slowly, he raised his arms. Just as slowly, he put them around either side of Roll. She was still crying hard as ever; this felt like the right thing to do. He didn't want to spook her though; this was a bit more… forward than usual.

Rockman suddenly found that he didn't care about that. Roll was crying; getting her to stop was all that mattered. He stood up, took two steps around the ottoman, leaned down and pulled Roll into a tight hug. "You've been unhappy, and I can't help but think that it's my fault. I just… I just want you to be happy, Roll-chan."

Roll went stiff in his arms. There was a brief pause in her weeping. He thought maybe he had shocked her into silence, but a sniffle proved him wrong.

"I-I am… h-haa…ppy…"

"No you're not," he said bluntly. There was no way she could convince him that these were tears of happiness.

"I'm n-not," there was a sharp intake of breath, a quiet sob, "I know I'm not! But I've been trying so hard t-to let go… W-why are you d-doing th… this now, Rockmaaan?"

Though he didn't quite understand her, Rockman knew what he was doing. "I already told you; I want you to be happy."

Roll was either reluctant to speak or no longer had the ability to. She did, however, seem to accept the fact that he wasn't going to be letting go of her anytime soon, and leaned into his embrace. This surprised Rockman; though the old Roll would've jumped at this chance for closeness, he felt that new Roll should have viewed it as a sign of weakness and rejected it.

Maybe she wanted a hug. Maybe she didn't want him to see her tear-streaked face. Maybe he had read her completely wrong, and she was going to turn back into her normal, huffy self and give him a good smack across the face. Maybe…

Most likely, he was overanalyzing the situation. She was crying; wasn't it instinct to try and comfort others in need? Or to want comfort? Rockman was more than happy to provide it as long as Roll was willing, and kept his arms locked firmly around her. He entertained the thought of rubbing her back, but rejected it quickly; this hug alone was awkward enough. There was no need to spook her away.

It took Roll a few good minutes to quiet down, and one or two more before she pulled away. She took a deep breath and re-settled herself on her seat as though nothing had happened.

For some reason, that bothered Rockman. "Roll-chan?"

"I know that everyone is just trying to help me, and I'm thankful, really I am. But…" Roll shook her head, "I never asked for help. So what if I'm jealous of Meiru-chan? It would be _nice_ to have a baby like Meiru-chan, but I don't _need_ one to be happy."

It made sense; Roll had just told him that they didn't share the same reality as their Operators… and that she didn't want the same reality. Emulating Meiru's experience was probably the last thing she wanted.

"Oh. Okay, so what _would_ make you happy?"

Roll gave him a serious look. "You asking that question makes me happy."

Rockman found he could do nothing more than blink at her. "That can't be all you want."

"Rockman. Netto-san… you said he never asked you what you wanted, he just went ahead and did it. But… if he had asked, what would you have said?" The color had returned to Roll's face a bit; she was obviously avoiding his question by asking another.

All the same, her question made him pause

"If I want a baby?"

"Yeah. Do you?" She sounded curious.

"Well… I pretty much raised Netto-kun when he was a child," (Roll muttered, "He still is!"), "so I don't think it would be difficult…"

"I know you _could_, but do you _want _to?"

Her tears were gone, and that same smile he'd been missing for so long was back. It was faint, but unmistakable.

"Ah…"

It wasn't as though Netto would _make_ him have a child; even though Netto hadn't asked until the last minute, all along the idea had been a suggestion. He or Roll could have said no at any point. They could've said yes, too; that was the problem. Netto was curious if Rockman wanted a child… but he didn't care about the reasoning behind the answer. He just wanted a yes or no.

Roll, on the other hand, wanted the exact opposite. Behind her smile was a barrage of questions: "do you think you'd make a good father?", "do you want a boy or a girl?", "would teach him or her how to Net Battle, or would you be too afraid?"…

He had told her that she was important to him. Was… was this her way of returning the sentiment?

"I think… it would be nice," he stumbled. For some reason, he felt compelled to tell her the truth. "If nothing else, it means I could come home to two smiling faces." Being compelled, however, did not make the truth any easier to admit to. His voice got steadily more quiet and slow as the color on his face rose. By the end of his sentence, he was as pink as Roll and nearly inaudible.

"Aah, I suppose," Roll said in a forced casual. "But," her face brightened with a curious look, "what would you do in the morning?"

"The morning?" he questioned. It was obvious what he would do: "Say goodbye to two people."

"No, I mean… don't you think your child would be sad to see you go?"

"Oh." He blinked. "I suppose so. But that's not much of a problem, I could just leave before—" Rockman paused; he remembered the days that Papa left before Netto woke up…

…and vividly remembered Netto crying because he didn't even get a chance to say good-bye.

"I'll just be late to work," he decided, giving a firm nod as though that settled the matter.

Roll hummed a neutral note, but looked pleased.

"What about you, Roll-chan? Would you like a baby?" It struck Rockman that nobody had asked _her_ that either. Everybody, himself included, had been asking "do you want us to get you one?", not "would you enjoy having one?".

"Mm… for the right reasons, yes. I would love to be a mother, so someday I hope I can," she nodded.

"The right reasons?" Rockman asked. "Just wanting one is not enough?"

"Of course not! Wanting one is entirely different from deciding to have one," she answered.

"…it is?"

"It is!" Roll nodded, smiling at his confusion. "Anybody can _want_ a baby, but it takes two people to _have_ one. Well… for humans at least, but…"

This was what Meiru had been saying. More accurately, it was what she thought he was doing wrong in this situation.

"Yes," Rockman nodded. He did not think he was wrong, and decided to test his understanding of it against Roll. "A baby is a sign of devotion, right? It's a commitment to another person."

"Commitment?" Roll gave him a bemused giggle. "Did Netto-san tell you that? I suppose… in a sense, yes. But it's not so stuffy and formal as that!"

Rockman gaped at her; he could not recall the last time he heard Roll giggle like her old self. "So… so you don't want commitment?" From the way her mood was progressing, it seemed as though all she needed was somebody to talk to.

"O-oh… me?" Roll bit her lip. She dropped her gaze to the floor and began to trace circles on the ottoman with one finger. "I… I don't know. Meiru-chan and Netto-san… they've chosen to spend the rest of their lives together, haven't they? That's why they have the confidence to have their baby. The bond they share… it's amazing." Roll fidgeted and brought her hands close to her mouth, torn between twiddling them or chewing them. "Even though… even though I'm not human, someday… maybe someone…"As she trailed off, her face went three shades darker. She hastily turned away and buried her face in her gloves. "Kyaa! This is embarrassing… I'm talking nonsense, please don't listen!"

Roll wanted a reason to commit to another person, and it wasn't children. It was love.

Love! It was such an obvious answer, and somehow not at the same time. Meiru-chan, despite everything she'd been going through, had one constant in her life: Netto's love. But for Netto it was such an automatic thing that he probably didn't even realize it. It was for that same reason that Rockman had missed it; they were married, so love was a given.

Rockman told Meiru that he could emulate Netto for Roll's sake; he could become a father and start a family. But Netto had a third title which he did not: husband. Rockman remembered that day well; Netto woke up and out of the blue said, "I should marry Meiru-chan." After a moment of thought, he added, "You know what? I think I will. Rockman, will you help me pick out a ring?" It was an instantaneous decision and, though it took two more weeks for Netto to work up the courage to ask, didn't require much thought. Netto just came to the conclusion that it needed to be done… and did it.

In general, Rockman tried to put more weight behind his decisions, but he was not immune to his Operator's impulsive lifestyle. They'd grown up together, and predictably rubbed off on other another over the years. This was why when Netto suggested buying a baby Navi, Rockman was all for it. He and Roll could buy a child and raise it together alongside their Operators. He hadn't given much though to the "together" part, though. It had seemed like a good idea for Roll, so he glossed over the details and said "yes".

"_It's just as important that you decide what _you_ want, Rockman."_

Maybe he was underestimating Netto. Netto made snap decisions, but that hardly meant he put no thought into them. He and Meiru dated for close to four years, were obviously in love with one another, and obviously had a future together… So maybe instead of coming to the conclusion that it _should_ be done, Netto decided that he _wanted_ to marry Meiru that morning. And Meiru, already knowing the answer to his proposal, was waiting for him to want to ask it.

Netto and Meiru had made a mutual choice to be together.

"We…" Rockman swallowed hard, "aren't like them, are we?" It was more of a statement than a question.

Roll flinched. After a moment, she dropped her hands and shook her head. "No."

Roll had grown up. She had changed. These last few months, she'd been intentionally distancing herself from him. In other words… she had given up on him. She was trying to let go and was upset that he was finally starting to cling on. That was why she cried. Even if she at one point loved him and was waiting for his decision, it was too late for him to give it now. She wanted to leave.

"Roll-chan, what… what would you do if you found that person?"

"Huh?"

He understood. She was looking for someone special, and for the first time ever, "someone" wasn't an implied "Rockman". From the casual way she'd said it, "someone" could be… could be anybody! Could be Blues, could be Gutsman, Tomahawkman, or even a complete stranger. As laughable as those candidates were, it made them no less plausible.

Blues was emotionless; surely he wouldn't tolerate Roll's bubbly personality. That put Searchman out of the running too. Gutsman was just… _Gutsman_, and…

"What if he lived far away, somewhere like Jawaii? Or Sharro? How could you be with him?"

First and foremost, Roll was Meiru's Navi. She was tied to Meiru's PET, and should Meiru need her for something, it was her job to respond at the drop of a hat. Even with the speed of the internet in this day and age, she would not have an easy time jumping back and forth between far apart places on a regular basis.

Roll was taken aback. "O-oh. I… I'm not sure. But… we would work something out, I guess."

"Even if he were somewhere closer, he couldn't… you wouldn't really be able to live together like a family, so how could you start one?"

"I don't—"

"Would you leave?" The question came out much more rushed than he would have liked, but for some reason Rockman had no desire to try and hide his sudden panic. "Would you leave so you could be with him?"

"Rockman," Roll said, puzzled, I—"

"I don't want you to leave."

Roll stared at him, her mouth still open from being interrupted.

He stared back The threat that Roll could leave him someday was suddenly more than a threat; she was stronger now, and might very well have the power the walk away this instant. This was unacceptable.

"I'd miss you," he blurted out, "I _already_ miss you."

"W-what? I'm right here…"

"No you're not," Rockman shook his head. "You say goodbye when I leave and hello when I come home, but other than that you don't talk to me anymore. We don't do anything together anymore. We hardly even _see _one another anymore! You've been trying to distance yourself from me… and…"

Roll averted her face.

"Before all of…" he struggled to think of a word that summarized everything, and settled for, "_this_, we were close, weren't we? We were good partners, but over time we… we became close to one another. I guess I… took it for advantage, because I never really noticed until you left. Now that you're almost gone… I miss you."

Roll understood him. Roll was important to him. Roll had become a constant in his life… and he wanted her to stay that way.

Rockman knew what he wanted. He wanted to be with Roll. He'd wanted this for _ages_, but much like Netto deciding to marry Meiru, hadn't known that he wanted it.

Now that he knew… was it too late?

"Roll-chan…" he began slowly, "you have every right to walk away. If you want to leave, I… I won't stop you." His breathing picked up pace until he was nearly hyperventilating; Roll had no reason to stay… no reason to return his feelings. After how ignorant and probably cruel he'd been to her, leading her on for so many years, she deserved to leave. To run away and never look back. "But…"

There was no way he could tell her; it was cruel to admit this to her right as she gave up. All the same…

"You don't want me to leave?" Roll asked softly.

Rockman knew what he wanted and wished he didn't. Ignorance was better than this torture. He couldn't force Roll to stay; he should cut their ties with a smile.

He shot out a blue glove, palm up, fingers splayed. He held it in front of Roll. The words, "I don't want you to leave," came out of his mouth in a fervent whisper.

His hand hovered in the air, a silent invitation. Rockman stared at the blue palm. He didn't dare look at Roll; he was terrified of her reaction. He had no idea what he'd do if she said no.

Roll raised her right hand. Delicately, daintily, she let her fingers brush over his palm. When they got to the further end of his hand, her fingers curled. Her palm came down to rest perpendicular on top of his and her thumb wrapped around his own. Hands now one, Roll squeezed. Hard.

She was staying.

Rockman squeezed her hand back, suddenly aware of nothing except the fact that he never wanted to let go.

--


	9. Time Together

Gaahah, has it really been two months? This chapter is long, but that's no excuse. My computer died; _that's_ an excuse, but it's actually been good for me. I find I write faster when I use a plain ol' notebook and a pencil. The next two or three chapters are either written or heavily outlined, so you can expect a much sorter wait for those, I think.

Thank you everyone for your lovely encouraging reviews! I promise I will never abandon this story. It may take me a while to finish, but Inafune as my witness, it WILL get done.

Rockman, Roll, and all these other lovely things belong to Capcom. I claim nothing.

--

It was true; when looking for sheets for the crib Meiru-chan had picked out, Roll had picked her own favorite. And maybe she'd mentioned it to Rockman.

_Thump-thump-thump._

It was also true that they'd become very good at working as a team in the two years of their Operator's married life. So it was perfectly normal for Rockman to notice a difference in her and to complain about her increasing absence in the team.

_Thump-thump-thump._

It was also true that she'd made no effort to hide her feelings for Rockman when she was younger; she used to cling to him like a koala whenever she got the chance. And so maybe when trying to put a little distance between them, it had seemed like a one-eighty degree shift in her attitude to Rockman.

Even so...

_Thump-thump_-thunk_!_

A metallic crash jarred Roll out of her thoughts. The sewing machine, which she was operating, had gone past the end of the fabric it was hemming. The needle was going up and down through nothing, and with the sudden loss of tension the bobbin thread was starting to tangle up. Roll shut off the machine quickly, hoping the needle hadn't picked up too many extra threads.

"I'm done with this seam, Meiru-chan," she announced.

Meiru did not look up from her sewing instructions. "Okay, I think—" the newspaper instructions folded in on themselves, obscuring the part Meiru was looking at. She frowned, smoothed down the paper again, and after skimming the page flipped it over to read the backside. "I think we just need to sew the bib to the skirt. We've hemmed all the edges, right?"

"Right," Roll confirmed.

"Okay, let me just… sort this out and... Where are—aie! Stupid pins..."

Three things had led to today's sewing experiment:

One; school had ended this week. Meiru no longer had a job and, unfortunately, did not have a return in the fall to look forward to, as the school had not re-hired her.

Two; both Meiru and Roll thought that Nanette's apron was cute.

Three; on Meiru's last attempt to make her mother-in-law's meatballs, she had stained her only apron beyond repair with tomato sauce. Bored, needing a new apron, and knowing what kind she wanted but not able to find one cheap enough, Meiru had reluctantly opened the sewing machine that had not been touched since it was thrown against a wall.

So far, it was proving to be more difficult than either of them had thought it would be. But they kept at it; being forced to concentrate on sewing, neither could think about their respective problems. A sewing machine needle wasn't nearly as deadly as a Roll Arrow, but it was violent enough for Roll to count it as a form of stress relief.

Roll sighed. It felt as though her fighting spirit was dying a little more every day. Why else would she have accepted Rockman's plea to stay? After years of hopes and dreams getting crushed by his ignorance of her feelings, a tiny, pathetic, "I don't want you to leave," was hardly enough to make up for all of that. Plus, it had made things about fifty times more awkward between them. "I don't want you to leave" told Roll one thing: Rockman wanted to be near her. It did not tell her why he wanted her to stay, what his feelings were for her, or what exactly they should do now that she wasn't leaving.

Leaving; what an odd choice of words. Where would she go? Their Operators lived together, and so they themselves often had to work together. There was no way Roll could lock herself up in her PET and avoid Rockman for the rest of her life. It was impossible.

_"I don't want you to leave."_

No, what was impossible was Rockman saying something like that. After years of hopes and dreams getting crushed by his ignorance of her feelings, Roll had become (or was trying to become) more realistic about the situation. It was unlikely that Rockman would ever notice her feelings, and there was no way that he could feel the same way back. He didn't love her, and it was a childish fantasy to think he'd just "wake up" one day and realize his love for her. It was silly to hope that. Stupid. Out of the question. _Impossible_.

…and yet, that was exactly what had happened last week. Almost, anyway; Roll was very conscious of the fact that he had not used the word "love". He'd said "like" and "important", but not "love".

In fact, very little had changed in this last week. She and Rockman had gone back to their usual routine of goodbye in the morning and hello in the evening… and maybe Rockman started up conversations a bit more… and was a bit more attentive… and friendly…

But that wasn't love, was it?

"Surprise!" Something wrapped around her and squeezed tight.

"EEK!" Roll screamed in shock. She couldn't turn around to face the intruder, and her own arms were pinned, which cut off half of her offensive capabilities. Only half, though; she still had her antennae. "ROLL WHI—!"

"AAH!" The intruder let go, pushed away from her and, from the sound of things, fell to the floor. "I forgot about those!"

It was Rockman; she recognized his voice before she turned around. "Rockman?! What… why...?"

He was sprawled on the floor, propping his upper body up with his elbows. "You missed my nose by a millimeter, Roll-chan!" He gave a breathless chuckle. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! I haven't seen you use Roll Whip in a long time!"

"Gave you a heart attack?! You're the one who snuck up on me!" Roll retorted. Despite her still racing heart and justified anger, she held out a hand to help him up.

He didn't take it; he stood up on his own and brushed himself off. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I thought for sure that you'd notice me before I got to you!" He smiled warmly. "It took me a while to find you, Roll-chan! I thought you and Meiru-chan might have gone out until I heard a funny noise… Are you actually using the sewing machine?"

"Oh, yes," Roll agreed, somewhat distracted his casual manner and smile. "Meiru-chan needed a new apron, so I suggested we make one."

"Aah, I see. She couldn't get the stains out, then?"

"No," she said. Rockman rarely came home during the middle of the day; if he did, he had a good reason. "Rockman, why—"

"Roooll!" The sewing machine had a touch screen on the front of it so that Meiru could input commands (mostly for fancy stitches and embroidery) and so that Roll could look out. Through this screen, Roll watched as Meiru threw her nearly-complete apron to the floor. "It doesn't fit! It ties arou—huh? Rockman?" Her expression changed from annoyance to shock in an instant. "When did you get here? Is Netto okay? What's going on?"

Meiru, like Roll, knew that Rockman did not come home for trivial matters.

"Oh no, Netto is fine," Rockman chuckled, waving his hands in a placating manner. "Nothing is wrong; I just came to see if Roll-chan had some free time."

"Eh?" Roll peeped. He had never asked her this before. "Why?"

"Do you remember that Navi we met last week, Hyacinth? She had her baby today, and Nana-chan asked me if we'd like to see them."

"Oh!" Roll clasped her hands under her chin. "Really?" She had never seen a baby Navi in person before, much less one so newly born. "Have you seen them yet? Is the baby okay? How tiny is it? Ooh, I've only seen pictures, but the real thing must…"

She'd seen pages and pages of pictures; baby Navis were _adorable_, and the real thing could only be better. Hyacinth was a cute Navi, too. Her offspring, boy or girl, would only benefit from this. Nanette didn't need to ask Roll if she wanted to visit, or rather, ask Rockman. Rockman should know her well enough to know that her answer was a resounding yes.

And maybe, if she was lucky… Even though they'd barely said hello to one another, Hyacinth had given her a good first impression. If she asked nicely and promised to be extra careful, Hyacinth would surely let her hold the baby for a minute.

"Kyaa…" Roll bounced on her heels with pure excitement. "You think she'll let me hold the baby, right Rockman? Right?"

From the look on his face, it was obvious Rockman was fighting a losing battle not to laugh.

"Eh? What's so funny?"

"You h-have… the cutest h-ha… happy dance, Roll-chan."

"Eh?!" Roll stopped her bouncing. She let her hands droop, and felt her shoulders drop as well. Even though Rockman had meant it as a compliment, it didn't feel like one.

"Oh, no! I'm not saying it's a bad thing!" he was quick to add. "It's cute!"

"Cute"… Once upon a time, the implied "you are" before that word would have made her faint dead away. Now, she found it demeaning. She was acting like a hyperactive little girl, which admittedly she used to be when she was younger, but had been working so hard to stop doing over the years.

She crossed her arms with a huff. "I do not think I can go. I am helping Meiru-chan sew, and then—"

"No, go ahead," Meiru said, both interrupting and ruining Roll's attempt to snub Rockman. "There's no reason to finish this thing now."

"Oh! The apron!" Roll gasped. Meiru had been about to say something earlier; she was acting like even more of a child by ignoring her Operator in favor of a petty argument.

Before she could stutter out an apology or ask any questions, Rockman spoke up. "What's wrong, Meiru-chan?"

"It doesn't fit. It's supposed to tie around my waist. I cut out the pattern for my size, but… I'm no longer my normal size," Meiru said. She ran a hand over the growing swell in her stomach. "I don't want to redo it. I probably don't have enough fabric left even if I wanted to…" She blinked hard, exhaled loudly, put her arms akimbo, and turned away in one swift motion. "But it doesn't matter, I'm sure it will look terrible on me anyway."

_Oh no, not again…_

Roll began to panic. If their first sewing project ended in failure, she was sure Meiru would never want to try sewing again. Meiru hadn't been too emotional throughout her pregnancy, but her weight gain was starting to eat away at her self-confidence. As expected of a first-time pregnancy, Meiru had gone a full five months with hardly a centimeter gained. It was just in this last week her waist had started to expand like a bag of microwave popcorn. Everyone was shocked by the change, but a frantic call to the obstetrician revealed that it was a normal occurrence and had a very appropriate name: "pop". Women could go from their normal size to almost full-term size in a week or two.

Needless to say, this was more than a little shocking for Meiru.

"Oh, please don't say that!" said Roll, anxious to put a stop to the impending water works. "You look beautiful! The apron will look fine on you!"

Meiru had been handling things well, even this last week, but there were times when little things (like this) would set her off. Sometimes almost out the blue, she would declare she needed to be alone and would just leave.

It wasn't hard for her to escape Roll's worried voice; all she had to do was walk outside without her PET. Even simple, mundane places like three feet out the front door were troubling for Roll. As close as they were, she couldn't follow; they were places only Netto could reach. On two separate bad occasions, Roll actually had to call Netto at work and ask him to come home. He didn't have the time to do this on a daily basis, though, so it was up to Roll to diffuse Meiru's tantrums before they escalated to that point.

"N-no… no it w-won't…"

"Yes it will, please—"

Rockman laughed.

Roll's mouth, open from talking, opened wider. She gaped at Rockman. He was laughing. _Laughing _at an upset, pregnant woman. This was not the way to cheer her up; this was a surefire way to get _beat _up.

"What are you talking about?" Rockman said in a far too jovial manner for the matter at hand. "That shade of blue is very pretty on Meiru-chan! It reminds me of the vest you always wore when you were little."

Meiru swiped at her nose. "It… is a similar color, isn't it?" She leaned over and picked her apron up off the floor. The top half (the bib) was still only pinned to the waist and skirt, but it was attached well enough that Meiru could hold it up to herself at its full length.

"It looks very well made," Rockman commented. "I like the ruffle at the bottom! It's cute."

"You think?" Though her voice was still glum, Roll saw Meiru's face brighten at the compliment. "It's not too long?"

"No, knee length is nice," said Rockman. "Try putting it on. If you tie it a bit higher, like an empire waist, will it fit?

Meiru held the bib to her chest using her chin. With a little difficulty, she grasped both of the ribbon ties and knotted them behind her upper back. There wasn't enough excess to tie it in a large bow like the picture on the pattern showed, but it was long enough to make a knot that would stay in place.

"It feels okay," she murmured. She twisted her torso left and right, which made the bottom ruffled hem swish elegantly around her knees.

Roll was mesmerized by the motion. Tying the apron higher up accentuated the new curve of her stomach. The bib, which should be too long and loose when tied at this height, fit perfectly; the excess was filled out by the corresponding increase in her bust size. These two effects put together gave Meiru a beautiful, almost pear-shaped silhouette.

How on earth could Meiru think that her weight gain made her ugly? She was more stunning than Roll could ever recall her looking.

Rockman laughed again. "Give us a spin!" he joked, mimicking the desired motion by twirling a finger in the air.

Roll was suddenly aware of Rockman's crazy tactic; he was acting like Netto. He knew as well as she did that Netto was the only person who could reliably calm Meiru down, and was channeling the essence of Netto to accomplish this himself. It was pure genius.

Meiru complied to his request with a giggle of her own, and spun once on her toes. "Well?" she sing-songed. "What do you think?"

Rockman gave Meiru a serious nod and two big thumbs up. "Niiice."

Roll couldn't hold it in any longer; she broke down laughing. His plan, though genius, was also outlandish. As identical as they could look and behave some days, seeing Rockman mimic his Operator down to even the thumbs up was impressive, almost frightening, and completely out of character.

Meiru had picked up on this too; both women cracked up while Rockman scratched a cheek sheepishly.

"Oh..." Meiru gasped, clutching her stomach. "Get going, you two... and say hi to my idiot of a husband, won't you?"

Rockman nodded an affirmative.

"Are you sure?" Roll asked. She had always been nervous about leaving Meiru all alone, and Meiru's pregnancy had multiplied this fear by a factor of ten. "Is there anything I can do before we go? Anything you need? I coul—"

"No. I need nothing. I want nothing. I am not going to do anything strenuous or dangerous. I am not going to pick up any heavy objects. I will not require the services of anything connected to the internet other than the TV, which I can operate myself. I will not require the services of any kitchen appliances, seeing as I made my lunch when I made Netto's this morning." Meiru recited the list without inflection. She'd gone over this list many times. "Did I miss anything?"

It was the first time Rockman had heard it, though. He gave Roll a bemused smile.

"No, I can't think of anything else. Well, all right... if you're sure..." Roll trailed off.

"Okay then! Let's go!" Rockman cheered, setting off towards the glowing portal back into the bedroom computer.

"Okay." Roll shut off the view screen and with a smile of her own fell in step behind him.

It took less than half a minute navigate their way through the computer to their link to the internet.

Rockman stopped just short of the portal. He twisted around. "Roll-chan?"

"I'm right here," she said, stepping up next to him. "What's wrong?"

He answered with a pout that was strongly reminiscent of Netto.

"What?" she repeated. Rockman was being very expressive today; it was unusual for him to act so childlike, even when he was happy.

"Why do you always walk behind me?" he asked.

"Behind?" Roll titled her head in confusion. "I'm following you to SciLabs."

"But I didn't ask you to follow me," Rockman said, "you know the way to SciLabs. I asked you to come _with _me." He stuck his closest elbow out to her. "Come on."

"Eeh?" Roll felt herself go pink; Rockman had never offered to take her by the arm before, it had always been she who latched onto him.

Rockman didn't seem to think much of his offer or her reaction to it. He just shook his elbow at her, impatient. Torn between embarrassment and immense joy, Roll wrapped her arm around his. They stepped through the portal together.

Out in public, embarrassment won. When they passed the local message board they were spotted by Ramen, a Navi who lived two houses away from their own. He froze halfway through his wave and, though he only paused for a second, Roll knew what he was thinking from the wide grin on his face.

They continued to walk in silence. Roll dreaded getting to Net City; surely they would get all kinds of funny looks and comments there. It would be crowded too, seeing as it was the lunch hour, and—

"Is something wrong, Roll-chan?"

"W-what?!" Roll came back to reality with a jolt. "N-no! Of course not!"

"If you say so..." Rockman did not press the issue. After another minute of silence, he commented, "This is like old times, isn't it?"

Roll knew what he meant; they hadn't walked arm in arm like this since they were children. "Yes, but I've grown up since then, right? I... I didn't jump on you this time."

"Yes, you have," he nodded. "To tell the truth, I always used to be a little embarrassed when you would walk around with me like this." He gave a nervous laugh and scratched at his cheek with his free hand. "But in a way, I liked it too. It is a polite thing to do; I felt like a gentleman escorting a lady."

Somehow, that didn't surprise Roll at all. "You're so old-fashioned!" she laughed. "It's cute."

Rockman shrugged. "I like walking with you; we haven't gone anywhere together in a long time."

Her laughter died in her throat. "O-oh. We… we go places. We went to SciLabs recently, right?"

"No I meant... We used to meet up in Net City all the time. Now we only go there for errands or walk though it to get to SciLabs." His statement was an observation more than a suggestion for change."I guess now that we live in the same house, we don't need to set up times and places to meet."

"No, not really," Roll agreed.

"We still could, though."

"Still could what?"

"Go to Net City sometimes. There's lots of things to do there," said Rockman. "We haven't been to a movie in a long time... Do you want to stop by DigiFilm to see what's playing?"

Roll kept her lips firmly sealed, not trusting them to make coherent noises. Rockman... the one and only Rockman whom she'd loved and worshiped since the day they met... was not only escorting her into Net City of his own volition, but was now asking her to go on date. A _date_.

"Roll-chan?"

Of course, Roll told herself glumly, he wasn't aware of the implications of his question. Like his operator, he was oblivious to the emotional impact his actions had. Meiru had gone on a full three dates with Netto before he noticed how dressed up and excited she got and figured out what they were really doing.

"I-it's nothing. I'd love to see what movies are out, I haven't been keeping track of that at all lately," she said.

"Okay! We'll take a little detour, then."

Hopefully like Netto, though, Rockman would figure things out. He would decide what "like" and "important" meant, and...

_...and in doing so, spend more time with me._

Come to think of it, maybe Rockman had been acting differently this last week. He smiled more. He laughed more. Everyday he had a new, thoughtful question about her day or her life, and was content to just sit back and listen to her answer. He appeared to genuinely enjoy spending time together. If this kept up, then surely... it would lead to...

Cheered by the thought of future possibilities, Roll sped up her pace. "Come on! We have a lot to do!" she smiled, tugging on Rockman's arm.

---

So far, Roll and Hyacinth were getting along marvelously. After re-introducing themselves, they'd done nothing but talk about and fawn over Hyacinth's new baby.

"And so he said—"

"No!"

"He did!"

"Haha! Oh, oh you can't be serious!"

"I know he's the father, but really! What kind of name is that?"

Rockman found it strange. For a Net Navi, gender was a perceived difference. Though the ones and zeros that made up a Navi were comparable to the A, T, C, and G's that made up human DNA, there were no distinct X's or Y's that separated one kind of Navi from another. (And as far as he knew, Rockman himself was the only partial exception to this rule, his coding having from a human genome.)

Regardless of this fact, humanoid Navis often took on the appearance of one gender. With slight modifications to their program, they could give themselves muscles or curves, deep or high pitched voices, and just about any other male or female quality they desired. Even so, it was only an emulation of gender, not the real thing.

"Why would he do that? I think Cosmo is a lovely name!"

"Well, he's afraid people will mistake the baby for a girl."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because people always think he's a woman. His default weapon is a bow that shoots roses."

…and yet, there was no denying that the only word fit to describe Roll was "female".

Rockman watched as Roll clapped her hands together in front of her mouth as another wave of giggles hit the two women. When she clapped, all her of fingers hit their corresponding pair and steepled except her pinkies. They did not touch; they stayed separate and lifted, like one would do while properly holding a teacup. She'd done the same thing last week when they were experimenting with Dimensional Bubbles. When picking up the rose vase, she had lifted it delicately with four fingers, not all five.

It was strange; he'd known Roll for years, and always thought of her as female, but somehow… recently, he was noticing just how feminine she was. Most of her typical female behaviors were learned from Meiru, no doubt, but the little things she did seemed so innate. Without thinking she'd picked up the vase with four fingers. Without thinking she covered her giggles. Without really meaning to put it there, she had a sway in her walk. There was a gracefulness and delicacy in everything she did, and it came automatically to her.

For some reason, these tiny details were fascinating. Roll, who had been an almost constant feature in the background during his youth, was moving more and more into the foreground of his observation.

Nanette broke his train of thought by entering the scene and blocking his view of Roll. She had one arm full of wires and sensors which were all attached to a strange machine on a rolling cart she was pulling along with the other hand. Rockman only half-listened to the explanation of what was about to happen; he figured this meant it was time to leave, so he tried to catch Roll's eye to see if she agreed.

"What should she do with Cosmo?" Roll asked, oblivious to his efforts.

"Huh?"

"My baby," Hyacinth repeated to Nanette. "I can't hold him while I'm shut down."

"Oh! Um, right! I didn't think…" Nanette fumbled. "I should have brought something to put him in. Um…" She eyed the cart behind her and the bundle of wires in her arms. All of a sudden, the uncertainty on her face melted away. Her body straightened and she gave a curt nod. "I can complete this task with one hand, and therefore am able to hold the child. Please transfer him to me."

"Aah, that's…" Hyacinth, sitting on a reclined examination table, brought her knees closer to her chest, which shielded her baby from view. She was understandably reluctant to hand him to Nanette. "That's too troublesome for you. Why don't we let Roll-chan hold him?"

"Oh!" Roll flashed an excited smile at Rockman; this was what she'd been waiting for. "Is it really okay?"

"That is acceptable," Nanette conceded. "Roll-san, if you will?"

"I'll be careful, I promise!" Roll told Hyacinth. With an almost practiced ease, she scooped the proffered baby out of her new friend's arms.

Rockman gaped at her. He knew for a fact that she'd never held a baby before, and now she was doing it like she'd been doing it all her life.

"Come here, you… Shh! It's okay, look! Mama is right here!" Roll cooed. She angled her arms so the baby could see its mother. "She's right here; we're not going to leave her. She just needs to take a little nap…"

Humming reassurances, Roll took a few steps back to give Nanette room to work. She gradually turned away, too, so the baby would not see its mother go limp and rag doll when she shut down. Rockman was impressed with her judgment.

Of course, he'd always known that Roll would be good with children. It was in (even though she was not programmed to have one) her nature. Rockman decided to get a closer look.

The baby was tiny, even close up. Roll had one arm under his body and her other hand under his head, but he was small enough to fit in one arm. Like a human infant, his proportions were different from those of the adult body. His head, encased in a green and white helmet, was easily the biggest part of him. His Navi icon was a close second; it was almost the same size as an adult Navi icon, and looked huge and out of place on his tiny chest. His armor wasn't complete either; he had no boots or gloves. Instead, his dark green jumpsuit ended at the wrists, revealing pale, skin-colored hands. From there the suit went down to his toes, covering his feet like the long pajamas Netto used to wear when he was small.

_Netto-kun… No, this isn' t the time for that.  
_

As strange and disproportionate as this minuscule creature was, his appearance served the same purpose as that of a newborn infant; they were intentionally vulnerable so that adults would feel compelled to take of them.

Roll had fallen deep into this trap. Completely enamored, she nuzzled their foreheads together. "Hello sweetie! I'm Roll-oneechan! Hellooo..."

The baby raised his arms and grabbed at the air. Unable to reach his goal (Roll's face, which was now contorting into silly expressions), his chubby fingers grasped at her Navi icon.

"What are you doing, silly?" Roll giggled. She shifted the baby so that she was cradling him with one arm. With her now free hand, she gently pried his inquisitive fingers away. "Do you like my antenna? I've give you one, but I don't want you pulling on it."

The baby was satisfied with just her hand. He grabbed the index finger poking at this nose and jammed it in his mouth.

"Does it taste good?" Roll laughed again, amused by his antics. "Is it yummy? Yum..."

Rockman had to chuckle at the enthusiasm with which the baby was chewing. "Does it taste like pink?" he asked, leaning over.

The baby gave him a blank stare, noticing his presence for the first time.

"Do you want to say hi to Rockman?" Roll took advantage of the baby's slack jaw to retrieve her finger. "You should learn to introduce yourself properly! Say, 'I am , zero years old! Please take good care of me.' Can you say that? Hmm? And then we bow..." Roll bent her knees and bobbed the baby down once.

"I am Rockman. EXE," Rockman answered. He figured he was too old to give his age (and didn't know it exactly; it could be several numbers depending on how it was calculated), so he bowed instead. "It is nice to meet you!"

"Do you want to hold him?" Without waiting for an answer, Roll pushed the baby towards him. "Here! Try it, it's not hard."

"O-oh, I'm not su—" By this point the baby was practically in his arms, so there was no point in refusing. "Eh, uhm, like this?" Though Roll had made it look easy, Rockman had no idea how to hold a baby. He knew that humans were very careful with how they held their offspring, but wasn't what it was they did special, why they did it, or if any of that even applied to a baby NetNavi.

Thankfully, Roll picked up on his hesitation.

"Like this," she instructed, guiding his arms as she transferred her bundle, "this arm under his body— good— and your other hand under his head. I don't know if he needs the head support like a human, but..."

_Better safe than sorry._

Roll let go. Rockman held his breath... and nothing baby didn't fall or cry; the transfer was a success.

"You're right! This isn't so hard," Rockman commented, still somewhat impressed with himself.

"I told you so."

"I know, but..." Rockman regarded the small Navi in his grasp. It was heavier than he expected, the weight unevenly distributed more towards the head. Still, Rockman could not deny that there was something innate about this posture; though it was a product of human evolution, it had translated into the virtual world almost unchanged. The baby fit snugly in his arms.

"But...?" Roll prodded.

It was hard to put his objection into words. "I've held similar things," he explained, "things about this size or weight, but a baby is... alive. It moves."

"And that makes it difficult?" Roll chuckled humorlessly.

"No, it just makes me nervous! I can't predict what he's going to do next, and I do not want to be responsible for dropping him!"

"Well he's not going to run off on you; I'm not even sure he can crawl."

As though on cue, the baby's blank face scrunched up.

"Ah!" Rockman braced himself.

The baby opened his mouth wide and inhaled deeply.

"Oh! He's yawning!" Roll gasped. "See, Rockman? He's just sleepy. How adorable!"

The baby shut his mouth and blinked his watering eyes. He squirmed as though trying to get more comfortable.

Rockman tightened his hold. "O-oh no, please don't do that!"

The baby instantly responded with a whimper.

"Not so tight!" Roll admonished.

Reluctant to do so, he released his grip only marginally. "Sorry!" he apologized to both Roll and baby. The baby did not accept this apology, however, and continued to give him a displeased look. Anxious to avoid tears, Rockman bobbed the baby up and down. He'd seen parents bounce their children like this to soothe them. When Netto was little, Papa used to bounce Netto on his lap all the time.

_Netto-kun... No, not now!  
_

It didn't work. Tiny whimpers turned into longer, louder whines. The baby squirmed harder, clearly wanting to be let go. In a flash, Roll swooped in and snatched him away.

"Come here... oh shh, shh, it's okay..." Roll cast a fearful glance at Nanette. Rockman wasn't sure if she was looking for help or afraid of a reprimand.

Nanette, however, was too preoccupied with her tests to offer much help. "Don't worry 'bout it. He's just tried and grumpy from sensory overload. He's supposed to observe and learn from the world around him, but he's only been active for a few hours so all this new stuff is overwhelming." She twisted a knob on the oscilloscope-esque machine she'd brought with her. It started to produce a low buzzing sound, but a sharp smack to its side shut it up. "Please hold him a little bit longer, I just need to... oh come on, you were working yesterday..."

"All right," Roll answered. "Rockman," she said in a quieter tone, "let's give Nanette-chan some space."

With that, Roll hoisted the baby up so he was held vertically against her chest with his face nestled against her shoulder. She swayed him gently as she walked away, and it shifted the sound of his crying in a miniature Doppler Effect to Rockman, who was a few steps behind.

"You poor thing," Roll lamented, "you've had a big day, haven't you?"

When they got a sufficient distance away (out of earshot of Nanette's angry muttering), Rockman stopped. Roll did not; she slowed down her walk into a gentle, circular pace. The baby began to quiet at the rhythmic motion, and Roll filled in the silence with soft humming.

Rockman stared at her.

Once upon a time, he asked Netto why his PET was so full of pictures of Meiru. "You see her every day; why do you need pictures?"

"Because!" Netto had protested vigorously. "There are moments that I want to remember forever. The first time she wears a new dress, that time we got into a soap fight while doing dishes and she got covered in bubbles... Sometimes, no matter how mundane it might seem, I just... need a picture."

Watching Roll pace, Rockman understood this sentiment perfectly. Roll was gorgeous. She was calm and serene, but also focused and composed at the same time. Her humming, which started out as a random melody, turned into a lullaby that Mama used to sing years and years ago. She even had her eyes half-shut in that way only mothers knew how, giving the baby a sweet, loving look.

She was gorgeous; that was all there was to it, and he needed a picture. He opened a command window in front of himself and activated a screen capture program. The window shrunk and got thicker, taking on the translucent appearance of a real-life camera. As the revolution of Roll's pacing switched her from walking away to walking towards him, he snapped a few images. He paused when she was facing him directly; he wanted a front-on picture but was afraid of getting caught doing it without her permission.

_N-netto-kun... puts pictures all over his desk. Why can't I have one or two?_

Almost on cue, Roll glanced up. Her smile morphed into a little "oh!" of surprise which cut off her humming and stopped her in her tracks. She flushed bright pink and her smile returned, though it was directed at the floor. It was an innocent request on his part; after a moment of embarrassment she seemed to come to this same conclusion and raised her face back up with a toothy smile for the camera.

Once the picture was taken and the camera lowered, Roll inclined her head at the baby in her arms. _Look at this_, she mouthed without sound, _fast asleep_.

Sure enough, the tiny face squished against her shoulder was blissfully blank with sleep. For some reason, even though he had no part in this accomplishment, Rockman felt a sense of pride well up inside of him. Unwilling to translate this into words for fear of making noise, he conveyed his praise with a thumbs-up and a nod.

Roll nodded back. She returned to her humming and swayed on the spot. She had no reason to do it now; Rockman figured she was doing it simply because she enjoyed it. As he watched her, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was going to be an excellent mother someday.

His breath caught in his throat. Roll... _was _going to be an excellent mother. Not _would _be; _was _going to be, and he was so certain of this fact because...

_Roll wanted a reason for commitment..._

Roll was kind. She was caring and sweet. She always had a giggle and an adorable smile to share with the world. She was upbeat, optimistic, and normally a happy person. Even in hard times, she had an encouranging word and hug ready for anyone.

_Roll wanted..._

And she was very open with her emotions. When she was happy, the world knew it. When she was angry, the world knew it (and took cover). She rarely took no for an answer. It was an odd occaision when she let an argument end with her losing. As sweet and demure as she often looked and acted, when push came to shove Roll could shove. She could hold her own in a Netbattle. When she had a goal in mind, she was driven and focused in achieving it. Everything she did was done on time and done well.

_...a reason..._

But Rockman knew this Navi was not perfect. He could tell when she began to tire in a Netbattle. He'd seen her loose her temper and stomp and shout like a child. He'd seen her be absentminded and make mistakes like burning the rice she was cooking or accidentally ordering a 24-month subscription to _Knitting Today! Online_. He was getting better at telling when she was hiding things or when she was upset. He knew when she was hurt; while others saw desperation in her moves as she began to loose a fight, Rockman could only see the fire in her eyes that refused to let her give up.

He admired her for all these things and more. More so than that... he...

_...for commitment: love._

Time slowed to a crawl as Rockman watched Roll sway. Her nostalgic humming washed over him and settled deep in his chest. A warm feeling ignited there and spread like wildfire. It spread to the tips of his toes; of their own volition, his feet carried him closer to her. It spread to his fingertips; they burned with the desire to touch her, but she had a halo of serenity surrounding her that they were unwilling to intrude upon.

He didn't mind; just standing next to her was enough. Standing here felt good; it felt right, and he had every intention of standing beside her as long as he was able.

--

Rockman was acting strange.

"That was more fun than I thought it would be! I am glad Hyacinth wasn't awake to see me holding her baby, though."

"You did alright," Roll countered. "He had a big day; he was tired. That's not your fault."

"But he got quiet almost the second you took him; he really liked you. "

"If by "like" you mean "fell asleep", then yes," Roll chuckled.

"Yeah, Nana-chan said babies sleep a lot. I wonder if newly-created mature Navis sleep more than normal. I don't remember, but I'm not a very good example. Papa would wake me up for short periods of time to test specific things, then shut me down for long periods of time until he perfected them. My memories of my creation are hazy because of that. "

Rockman had never displayed much interest in babies before. Being forced to hold a newborn, though, seemed to have awakened his curiosity. After Nanette was finished and they handed Cosmo back to Hyacinth, he'd asked Nanette about a million questions. When Hyacinth started to fall asleep, Roll decided that they had overstayed their welcome. She'd thanked both Nanette and the new mother, and excused herself and Rockman as politely as possible.

But Rockman seemed reluctant to go. Even now, it felt like he was dragging out their conversation.

"What about you, Roll-chan? Do you remember when you first woke up?"

"I suppose," she mused, her mind not really on the topic at hand. "Before I was given to Meiru-chan, I slept a lot because I had nothing to do."

Rockman was waiting for her to continue her answer. She had nothing more to say, and so she let the silence stretch out.

"So…" Rockman picked up on the awkwardness, "I guess you'll be going home now?"

"I suppose so," she nodded. "Unless there's something else you want me to do while I'm here?"

"No… not really," he said with a small shake of his head.

On the rare occasions that Roll needed to deliver a message to Netto or Rockman at work, both of them were usually too busy to talk for more than a minute. Rockman was never one to slack off, and it was a Wednesday; there no reason he shouldn't be busy in the middle of the week.

"Rockman," Roll started slowly, "thank you for taking time out of your day for me."

"Oh!" His face brightened. "It's no problem! I wanted to see the baby, too."

"Still! I know how busy you and Netto-san get. I should let you get back to him."

The brightness faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Aah. I suppose."

"Rockman… is something wrong?"

"What? No, I'm fine…"

Rockman was much more similar to Netto than he would ever admit. Both of them wore their hearts on their sleeve without realizing it. If you pointed it out to them they could do a good job of hiding it, but usually by that point it was too late to bother.

"Really?"

"Yes, everything is fine."

Roll respected Rockman's privacy, though. If he didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't force him.

"Are you sure? Alright then, I'll get going." She gave him one last smile, and turned around to walk home.

…Two steps into her walk, something clasped around her right wrist and stopped her. Roll jumped at the sudden touch. She looked down at the blue glove on her wrist, and followed the outreached arm back up to Rockman.

"Roll-chan…" He was blushing.

"Yes?" she asked timidly.

"I want to show you something."

With that, Rockman took off in the other direction, pulling her behind him.

Roll nearly tripped. "W-what?! Rockman…"

He wasn't running, but it took Roll a few seconds to regain her footing enough to catch up. What was wrong? He didn't need to drag her like this; if he had asked her to go somewhere, she would have said yes. She was anxious to get back to Meiru, but was willing to stay a little longer if Rockman wanted her to.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see," came the plain response.

So Roll trotted behind him, trying to ignore the funny looks they were getting from the Navis they were dodging around. It didn't take long for them to reach the edge of the main server. Rockman took a left onto a smaller path. They continued on this offshoot for a while until they came to a portal which took them to a different server.

Rockman took a less crowded path this time, and guided them around the outskirts of the server to another portal. This process happened two more times, each server being less crowded than the previous one. On the fourth and final floor, Rockman took a small, winding path that stretched on and on until Roll got so dizzy that she had to shut her eyes.

She let Rockman lead her, which proved to a bad decision when he stopped and she did not. She ran into him full force, and they both fell to the ground.

"Aie…" Roll muttered. "Aah! Rockman!"

They fell face first, and Roll had done a pretty good job of smashing Rockman's head into the floor. She scrambled to get off of him. She sat back on her legs, and helped pull Rockman in into a sitting position as well.

"I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

Rockman rubbed his nose once. "Ooh… Yes, I'm fine. I'm the one who should be apologizing…"

Roll looked around. They seemed to be on a very small, remote server. Though there was no way of telling for sure, it also looked very old. The grid pattern on the floor was a type that she hadn't seen in a number of years.

"Where are we?" she asked.

Rockman raised one hand, and a command window popped into existence in front of him. He pushed a few buttons, and then…

"Oh… wow…"

A window opened next to them and took up one entire wall of the server. It was a live video feed that showed a sprawling view of the forest behind SciLabs.

"H-how pretty!" Roll gasped. She had never seen the forest like this before. In fact, she'd only seen this forest twice, in little glimpses she got from her PET as Meiru walked out of the building. She had no idea it was this big, or stretched so far… or was so green! Wherever this camera was, it was pretty high up; the tops of the trees all blended together to create an uneven, constantly fluctuating carpet of leaves.

"We're in a security camera on the roof. Actually, I think it's on the side of the building under the roof's overhang," Rockman explained. "It's kind of hidden to protect it from the weather, but that's also caused people to forget that it exists. I'm pretty sure it's older than I am."

Roll turned her body so she could sit facing the screen. "How on earth did you find it, then?"

Rockman copied her and turned as well. "A Navi overcome by Dark Chips hijacked a helicopter three years ago. We were afraid he was going to crash it into one of our buildings, so we assigned people to watch all the cameras that have an aerial view."

"And you found this one?"

"Mmhmm."

After a few minutes of just enjoying sitting side-by-side and watching the trees sway in the wind, Roll sighed. "This is so peaceful. Do you come here often?"

"Not recently."

"Oh? Why not?"

"I've been busy. Plus, I tend to work over lunch now so I—aah, so Netto-kun and I can get home at a decent hour."

Roll turned at the small hitch in his sentence. She couldn't help but smile at the faint blush on Rockman's face. "How long have you been doing that?"

The blush was replaced by a scrunched up look of concentration. "Oh… about a year."

"A year?" Roll said, taken aback. "That long? I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know how much it's helped Netto-san; he gets back as late as always."

"I know, I know… The two of us tend to get so absorbed in our work that we forget about the time," Rockman chuckled. "But I know _I_ get more done this way."

"So you don't take any breaks at all?" Roll frowned. "That's not good for your health."

"I take small ones if I get tired," Rockman assured. "But I don't mind; it's worth the extra work to come home early."

"Oooh?" Roll raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

A flash of shock crossed Rockman's face, then a blush… and then a bashful scowl. "I like… coming home… when you're waiting for me," he ground out.

Roll smiled; it was the unintentional slipups he made that proved his feelings for her. Sometimes after he got caught, instead of ignoring it or making excuses, he would tell her the truth and say cute things like just now. It overjoyed her beyond anything she could describe.

"And I like waiting!" she declared back.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught a glimpse of a smile. Rockman acting strange or not, today was a good day.

It was also beautiful day to watch the outside world. The sky was crystal blue, marred only by a few puffy white clouds. A light breeze pushed them across their ocean, molding them as it saw fit.

"Look, look! That cloud there!" Roll pointed, excited. "Doesn't it look like an elephant?"

"An elephant?"

"Yes! With four little legs and a big trunk. See it?"

"Aah. I suppose." Rockman didn't sound very convinced.

"Eeeh?" she pouted. "What do you think it looks like, then?" Truth be told, she had never played this game before, and was nervous she might be somehow doing it wrong.

"I'm not sure."

"Come on, it's got to look like something! Haven't you ever played this game before?"

"I have," he nodded. "Netto-kun and I played it a lot growing up."

Though he had a nostalgic smile on his face, Rockman's words had come out sullen. Roll could not think of a proper response; it was becoming more and more apparent that something about Netto was bothering Rockman, but she was unsure if she should persue the topic. Had they gotten into a fight? It was rare, though not unheard of. Roll knew this infrequency was not entirely beneficial; because they got into so few fights, even small fights had to be huge for them.

She had no reason to interfere. The two of them always worked things out in the end. Even so...

"Rockman... you know... Netto-san can be a pretty capricious person. I'm sure he's forgotten whatever it is that's... well, that is, if something has... I mean..." Roll trailed off, finding it hard to complete her reassurance when she had no proof Rockman needed it. If nothing had happened between them she was just embarassing herself.

"I know he is," Rockman said softly. He tore his gaze away from the forest and focused it on his hands, now folded in his lap. "But I'm the one who is at fault here, so..."

So something _was _wrong. It was clear from his tone that Rockman did not want to dicuss what it was he had done. Roll bit her lip, mulling over how to best go about cheering him up without doing that.

"Can't you just go back and apologize?" she asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Netto-kun..." There was a long pause. "Netto-kun told me not to come back."

"Oh!" Now _there _was something Roll never thought Netto would say. This was more serious than she initially thought.

"Aah, but!" Rockman raised his head again and waved his hands in dissmisive manner. "Please don't make that face! I know he'll change his mind sooner or later, and... a-and it's not so bad. I got... to spend some time with you, right? So I'm okay."

Though she was happy at his comment, Roll still had to force a smile. She knew he wasn't really okay, but if being with her helped, she would stay right here. "Yes, I am glad to be here too. Does Netto-san know about this camera?"

"No."

_Which is why you brought us here_, Roll surmised.

"Okay then!" she cheered. She grabbed onto his arm like she'd done on the way to SciLabs and leaned against him. "This place is our little secret."

Rockman's brief shock was replaced by a wide smile. "Yeah."

As they returned to admiring the scenery, Roll could hardly believe her luck; who knew that someday Rockman would want to spend time alone together? Or that he would find her presence comforting? Granted it kind of stunk that it took a fight between him and Netto to--

_He's lonely._

The anwer came to her in a flash of realization; he was lonely. Rockman had spent almost every waking hour with Netto as a child. In the morning he woke Netto up, made sure Netto ate breakfast, made sure Netto got out the door (almost) on time, and made sure Netto took the fatest. safest route to school. On days they were really late, Roll knew (though he never would admit to it) that Rockman plugged-in to the traffic signs to alter them to their advantage. All through the school day he was either whispering to Netto, pestering Netto to stay awake, or taking notes when Netto eventually fell asleep. When school was over, they spent the entire afternoon together at the Net Arcade or doing Net Savior work. When they went home, he spent the evening pestering Netto to do his homework and to go to sleep on time. They then said goodnight to one another and the whole cycle repeated the next day.

As Netto grew up, however, this time spent together grew shorter. They were still as close as ever; Netto just had more things to give attention to... like Meiru.

Meiru was a completely different and seperate aspect of Netto's life that Rockman had no role in. There were times Netto wanted to be alone with Meiru; things he could only tell Meiru; things that only Meiru could do for him. She didn't create a huge difference in his relationship with Rockman, but to Rockman it had to feel like she was taking away a huge chunk of their time together.

Roll tightened her trip on Rockman's arm. He was lonely; that was why he liked spending time with her. She wasn't... a replacement for Netto, was she? No, she couldn't be. She was "important". He "liked" her. She was "special". She was his support, not just something to allieviate his boredom... right?

Something flashed through Roll's peripheral vision.

"Eeh?"

"Huh?" Rockman hummed.

"I thought…" Roll trailed off, staring at the left corner of the screen.

"What?"

"Something moved. Aah! Look!"

Several small pieces of something gray fell through the camera's view.

"What the…?" Rockman said, suddenly much more alert.

Two more pieces fell.

"Did one of those look like a bolt to you?" Rockman asked, uneasy.

"I would have called it a screw," Roll answered truthfully, "but yes, it—"

Before she could finish her sentence, a two-toned, grating alarm went off.

Roll fought back a yelp of surprise. Rockman, however, cursed loudly and jumped to his feet.

"Rockman…?"

"That's the intruder alarm! Somebody's on the roof!" He looked pale. "We need to leave; I have to find Netto-kun!"

Roll scrambled to her feet. She followed Rockman out of the camera back on to the fourth floor of SciLabs, finding it much easier to navigate the winding path when not being pulled.

"C-couldn't we just plug-out into your PET?" she yelled over the alarm.

Rockman, able to run faster and steadily putting more distance between them, called back, "No! My PET is being charged in Netto-kun's office, and Netto-kun can't get to it there. He's in Meijin-san's lab, and if he's followed protocol, the door should be locked. He can't get out."

Roll questioned Netto's ability to follow protocol (his record of doing so was spotty), but said nothing.

As they came to more open ground, her attention was drawn to the dozens of Mr. Progs that were flooding into the server via the same portal she and Rockman had used earlier. Mr. Progs were useful little programs, but had almost no offense or defense. Roll reasoned that they must have fled here from a lower floor in an attempt to save themselves; therefore, the intruder must be on another floor.

Rockman began to bellow questions at them, but nobody seemed to know what was going on. The general consensus, however, was that it was happening on the first floor. Netto was (or should be) in a lab on the second floor, so he was probably safe…

…but that did not lessen Rockman's mad desire to get to Netto. He pushed his way through the developing sea of green, eventually having to resort to shouting to clear a path.

Roll followed close behind in the wake he made through the Mr. Progs. Expecting to step through the portal right after him, she was surprised (and unprepared) when Rockman stopped just short of it.

"Eek!"

In what was rapidly becoming a reoccurring theme for them, Roll bumped into him.

"Roll-chan!" Rockman whipped around, and grasped both of Roll's hands firmly in his own. "Plug-out. It's not safe here."

"W-what?"

"Go home. Tell Meiru-chan that Netto-kun and I might be late tonight."

"What?" she repeated, indignant this time. "No! I'm coming with you!"

"You can't! It's dangerous."

"So what? I can take care of myself!"

"I know you can, but—"

"No!" Roll shouted. He was being overprotective again, and she refused to be the weak, scared Princess that waited for the Hero's return home. "I can help! I'm going with you!"

"Roll-chan…"

Roll suddenly found herself enveloped in a gentle hug.

"Roll-chan," Rockman repeated, his voice very close to her right ear, "please. I know you can help, but I don't want you to. I want you to go somewhere where I know you are safe. Please."

His voice was pleading, almost desperate. Roll found it hard to raise an objection against him. All the same…

_"Because," Rockman chuckled, finishing her sentence, "you, unlike the rest of the world, know that I am not perfect. You are fully aware what a small mistake could do in a dangerous situation. You know I make these mistakes, and…"_

Roll wanted to go, if only to keep an eye out for Rockman. He wanted her to go home so he wouldn't have to worry about her, but she didn't want to go home and have to worry about him. His concern was touching, but there was no reason Rockman should value her well-being so much over his own.

"Rockman… At least let me come with you until you find Netto-san. When I go home, I want to be able to tell Meiru-chan that I saw him in one piece."

Rockman pulled back with a sigh that brushed her cheek. "Fine. Stay close to me."

--


	10. Up and Down

SURPRISE!

You people keep giving me lovely reviews, asking me to update. Every review was motivation to get a few more pages written, and now, FINALLY... here you go! Enjoy!

(Also I hate the description for this story now. Someone help me think up a better one, please!)

* * *

_Please be there... please..._

The last time Rockman saw Netto was in Meijin's laboratory. Knowing Netto, that was the least likely place he was now.

_Please, for once in your life have followed protocol..._

SciLab's Safety Regulations stated that during an intruder alert, all doors and entrances were to be sealed. For this purpose, all doors had old fashioned deadbolt locks on them that could (in case of virtual intruders from the internet) not be controlled electronically. Only a human or another real-world object could lock or unlock them. It was then highly recommended to shut down, isolate, or firewall protect any electronic equipment in the room that was connected to the network.

But Rockman knew Netto; Netto was not the kind of person who hid and did nothing during a crisis. No, he was the sort that jumped right into the thick of things.

_Maybe Meijin-san talked some sense into him..._

This hope was unlikely. If anything, Meijin would be the first one out the door. And, knowing Netto, nothing could stop him from following. He had every right to do so; technically, he was still a Net Savior.

_But we haven't been called to do anything in over a year... Why does Netto-kun always have to go looking for trouble?_

Meijin tended to operate from the sidelines. As far as Rockman was concerned, the only thing Meijin would accomplish by finding that sideline would be to give Netto a clear view of the _front _line.

_Please be there... please have waited for me..._

That front line contained one of two things: a NetNavi in a Dimensional Area (which Netto could not fight without Rockman to Crossfuse with) or a real life threat in the form of people, weapons, or dangerous electronics (which Netto should not attempt to fight alone without equipment of his own). Rockman guessed that today's mishap was the latter; while shoving through a crowd of Mr. Progs he heard one yelling, "Let me go back! I have to sweep! There's glass all over the floor, I'm supposed to keep the floors clean!" at the top of his lungs, fighting to be heard over the discord of his green brethren. Both Navi and human were equally capable of breaking glass, but after a few highly unsuccessful attempts to attack SciLabs with a Dimensional Area, they were rarely used anymore. Plus, it was now a widely-known fact that the (in)famous Hkari Netto and Rockman worked here. Few people were dumb enough to put up a Dimensional Area with the two of them already inside it.

_Broken glass... and that bolt from the roof...This isn't a drill. Netto-kun, please..._

It was both joyous and foreboding to find the pathway to Meijin's laboratory wide open. Firewalls were supposed to be put up between servers during an intruder alarm, and the fact that Rockman had not encountered even one on the way here was an ominous sign. Regardless, Rockman was thankful for this fluke. He barreled through the connection to Meijin's server.

And there was Netto. He was sitting at the very console Rockman had entered. Having been expecting anything _but_ this, Rockman came to a screeching halt which tripped him up and sent him to all fours.

"Netto-kun! You're here! You didn't—the alarm—I thought..." His words came out in a relieved, garbled mess. "I'm so glad to see you, I thought for sure you'd run off with Meijin-san and you don't have your PET so I couldn't plug-out and find you and I didn't know what I would do if..." He had to stop to inhale, out of breath— which was stupid because he did not actually breathe, it was just something done to look more realistic and, in accordance with human breathing, he couldn't talk while inhaling— from his frantic running and run-on sentences. "...if you got into trouble and I wasn't there, I..."

"Of course I'm here! Where the hell have you been?!" Netto snapped, not tearing his attention away from his typing.

"But I... you..." The wave of relief that had crushed Rockman against the floor vaporized in a flash. "_You're_ the one who told me to get lost and not come back!" He'd lied to Roll earlier; his PET was not charging in Netto's lab, Netto had left it there intentionally.

"I wouldn't have told you to leave if you had just shut up and left me alone like I asked!"

"I was trying to help, Netto-kun!"

"Then you should've gotten a Sweeper to clean up the pieces of Generator 2, because-"

"Boys! Not now!" Meijin barked. His glare, however, was sent in Netto's direction. Netto did not fail to notice this, but did not disobey. He went back to work with a growl, firmly ignoring the Navi sharing his workspace.

Rockman fought to regain his composure. Even with Meijin's order and the pressing imminence of the situation, it was hard to keep his mouth shut. He and Netto had spent most of the morning arguing to no effect, and bringing up the topic again would only result in the same, useless finger pointing, but... somehow, Netto flat-out ignoring him was worse than the shouting. Netto was intent upon blaming his Navi for this fiasco. It was infuriating. He wouldn't listen to reason or apologies, and now wouldn't even acknowledge Rockman's existence.

Netto did have a halfway decent reason for being cross with him, though. Today during a test run, Rockman had somehow overloaded and broken their second Bubble Generator. Seeing as the first one was long since dead and they only had three Generators total, this was a significant loss for them. All three had been custom built by Meijin; Netto was an amazing programmer and had actually been the one to miniaturize Dimensional Area technology, but he lacked in practical engineering skills. Meijin was enlisted to help with this problem, but seeing as he did not have the time to continually repair his creations, he had decided to impart his wisdom onto Robert and Netto this afternoon. The tools and parts abandoned on their worktable indicated they had not finished their work before the alarm went off.

_Asano-san!_

Meijin was (amazingly) still in the room, but Robert was nowhere to be seen.

"Netto-kun, where is Asano-san? And what's going on?" he asked, giving a quick brush off to his knees as he got back up. "I heard about broken glass on the first floor and Roll-chan and I saw-"

"Roll?" Netto interrupted. He glanced up from his typing and blanched at the sight of the pink Navi. "Roll! Why is she here? Is Meiru okay?"

"What? Oh, yes. She's fine," Rockman reassured. "I invited Roll-chan here." He didn't feel like giving the details, and Netto didn't press the issue. "What's going-"

"Thank goodness!" Netto sighed. "You really need to come with a disclaimer, Roll. Meiru's getting so big, it makes me nervous."

Rockman took a deep breath. Netto could ignore him all he wanted, but that wouldn't stop the ongoing intruder alarm and the fact that Rockman still knew nothing about it. "Netto-kun, the alarm! What's going on?"

"Oh. That," Netto muttered, resuming the previous topic and attitude. "There's a forklift on a rampage downstairs and Rob went to get coffee. He probably stayed where he was when the alarm went off."

Rockman found himself at a loss, not quite sure what he'd heard. "A forklift?"

"Yeah. A forklift from the warehouse just came crashing through the front doors. I'm assuming it's been hacked, but it's got one heck of a firewall keeping us out, so we can't confirm that."

"Has anyone been hurt?" Rockman asked. A forklift was an odd choice of weapon, but he supposed in the right hands it could be an effective one. If it ran into someone, even at a slow speed, it could be fatal.

"I don't know. Meijin-san?"

"I'm not sure either," Meijin frowned. It was not the answer Rockman expected; there was a distinct lack of his usual "no need for formalities". Unlike Netto, Meijin was using his personal laptop which, under normal conditions, made him near omniscient. If he found this situation troubling, it was cause for real concern. "By the time we figured out what was going on and connected to surveillance, the main lobby was cleared out." He keyed a quick command, and a live security feed popped up.

From the view it presented, Rockman could tell it was the camera positioned above the font receptionist desk where their quirky security guard Bob sat. Normally used to keep an eye on visitors at the desk, Meijin had it pointed towards the double doors that were the entrance to the first floor labs. They were lightweight, metal doors that required an ID card to open, and were currently shut tight. How long they were going to remain this way, however, was uncertain. There was a definite dent in the middle, obviously due to the unmanned, orange-and-black forklift in front of them. It drove out of view, but Meijin did not switch cameras. Rockman took this to mean that it was coming back for another hit, and sure enough a moment later it reappeared going reverse at full speed.

"Backwards?" Roll gasped.

The forklift hit the doors with a shuddering impact which made Roll flinch closer to him. On the whole it looked like the forklift itself took the brunt of the damage, but as it drove away Rockman noticed that the right door's handle was now broken off.

"Yeah, the forks can't go through the door, it already tried that," Netto explained. "See how they're a little bent? It's going backwards and using its flat back as a battering ram."

"How many people are in there?" asked Roll.

"Enough," said Meijin tersely.

Rockman groaned at this news. The number was probably quite high. About thirty various scientists routinely worked on the first floor. In addition to this there could be people from other floors, maintenance workers, and contracted workers. The few who had been in the main lobby had probably fled there as well, thinking they could barricade themselves inside. It was only a matter of time before they were going to be wrong; another hit from the forklift visibly warped the top hinge of the right door.

"Do you think they've used the fire exits to evacuate?" he asked.

"If they've got half a brain they will," Netto muttered. "Or just go upstairs."

"We can't assume all of them have done that," Meijin corrected. "But that's the immediate problem, not our biggest problem. The rest of us on the higher floors are trapped. Unless we can secure a staircase, nobody can evacuate."

Rockman said, "Oh," in unison with Netto. The elevators were off-limits during intruder alarms (due to the risk they could be tampered with via the net) which left only the stairs as a means of exit. The main building contained three staircases, two of which were on either side of the main lobby. It would be easy for the forklift to block either of these. The third was in the middle of the locked hallway to the labs, and if the forklift was successful in its attack on the door this would not be a viable option either.

"So what do we do?" Netto complained.

Rockman knew where this was going. "_We_ don't do anything, Netto-kun. Meijin-san, aren't there any Net Police here?"

"No need for formalities. There's four here and more on the way."

"What are they going to do?" said Netto. He smacked the enter key hard with an air of finality. "This forklift is firewalled like crazy. They're layered on top of one another... I can't get in the steering controls or the engine. It can't be stopped remotely."

"Keep trying!" Rockman scolded. He knew it wasn't an impossible task to hack back into the controls; there could only be so many layers of firewalls before they broke through. Netto just had his own, dangerous ideas on how the problem should be handled and wanted to give up on their current, safer method. "Plug me in, maybe I can help."

"It's going to take too long!" Netto growled, his voice rising. "That door is gone in a few more minutes! And what about the injured? We can't just leave them there!"

"We're not," Rockman countered. They had no proof that anyone had been injured, anyway. "Plug me in and I can stop it!"

"What do you think Meijin-san's been doing this whole time on his laptop?! If he can't do it, we sure as hell can't!"

"You can't say that until you've tried!"

"I did try! I failed!" Netto shoved his chair away from the terminal with a huff of exasperation. "Rockman, all we have to-"

"No." Rockman didn't even need to hear Netto's plan to reject it. Any method of manually shutting down the forklift would require getting close to it, something he was not willing to let Netto have any part of. A forklift could change directions surprisingly fast; letting Netto anywhere near the first floor would be a mistake.

"But-"

"No." Rockman repeated, a full ten decibels louder.

"It's got an emergency brake!" Netto said just as heatedly, pushing himself upright so hard that his chair tipped over. "All we have to do is turn the stupid thing off!"

Meijin issued another warning of, "Boys!", but was too engrossed in his work to take any action on his threat and thus promptly ignored.

"If it's been hacked," Rockman argued, "then I'm sure the brake won't work, they will have thought of that!"

"Then we'll just push it over!"

"Push it over?" Rockman asked, incredulous. Before he could get an answer, however, he comprehended the meaning behind "we": Netto wanted to Cross Fuse. With their combined agility and strength, it would be child's play to both dodge and tip over the forklift. On its side, the forklift would be powerless. "Aah. Cross Fusion."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you! We blow the thing to pieces and our problem is solved in thirty seconds! Why can't we just _do_ this already?!"

The idea had merit, but it contained two major flaws which made it unfeasible.

"Netto-kun, we can't put up a Dimensional Area."

"Why not?!"

Rockman tried to force his frustration (and volume) down a notch. There was a logical reason for this refusal; Netto was just too impatient to see it. "If there's a Navi controlling the forklift, he could substantiate here inside the building. And if he's hacked in it from outside of SciLabs, then there is a good probability that our Network has a hole in security somewhere. It could be a trap! He might have an army of viruses waiting. Do you remember the first time that happened? With Shademan and Beastman? It was a disaster, SciLabs was overrun!"

There was no way Netto could forget this. It was the first time they had ever used Cross Fusion. Nonetheless, Netto brushed the memory off with an irritated wave of his hand. "We stopped Beastman, didn't we? We can handle whatever happens."

"Netto-kun, that's not the point!"

"So what is the point, Rockman?" Netto yelled at him, throwing both arms akimbo. "It's not safe, right? I'd be in danger? What about the people downstairs? You want me to sit here and do _nothing_," he slammed a fist down on his keyboard, "while they get run over?"

"That's not what I said!" Rockman shouted back, sidestepping the "compose new message" window that popped open at Netto's outburst. He could see why Netto was so adamant about getting this over with, but to his own, more mathematically-inclined mind, a Dimensional Area had a far higher potential to injure more personnel than it did to save them.

"We're wasting time! We should be helping!"

"We _would_ be helping if you would plug me into the forklift!" In the long run, Rockman had the better plan. He knew he did. Even if there were people who required medical attention, the labs had first aid kits, right?

"That's stupid!" Netto's face was an inch from the screen now. "We can Cross Fuse in two seconds and stop this!"

"I told you, we can't put up a Dimensional Area! It's too risky!"

"It's going to be up for two seconds, Rockman! Viruses can't overrun the place in tw-"

"Yes they can!" Both he and Netto had seen firsthand how quickly a room could fill with Mettaurs, and Rockman was not keen to repeat this experience.

"No they can't!"

"Yes they can!

"Boys! Knock this off already, you-" Again, Meijin went unnoticed.

"So what if they do? Small viruses are weak! You can step on them and they'll be deleted, it's not a problem!"

"It _is_ a problem! Why are you being so stubborn?"

"Me?!" Netto cried. "It's not me! If you'd just shut up and quit ruining our Synchro Rate, we could-"

"Netto-kun! You..." By now he and Netto had to have a negative Synchro Rating, if such a thing was even possible. Rockman's right hand, so tightly balled the nails would draw blood were he human, morphed into his Rockbuster without him actively choosing to do so. "I wouldn't Cross Fuse with you even if I could!"

"What...?"

"_I_ am the the reason our Bubble Generator broke._ I_ am the one who is ruins our Synchro Rate by not wanting to take the risks you do. _I_ am the reason we are standing here doing nothing. You never take responsibility for anything, Netto-kun!" His buster arm shook with the effort to keep the weapon at his side. With Netto being in the real world, his Rockbuster was an empty threat. He could shoot, and Netto's image would shatter into a satisfying pixeldust, but he could not stop the sound from coming through, could not stop Netto from just opening a new window. Rockman had never wished harm upon his Operator before; fear at this realization was making him shake as much as his anger was. "I am tired getting blamed for your careless decisions! I won't go downstairs, and I refuse to open a gaping hole for viruses to swarm the build-"

Netto punched the computer screen with a resounding crack. The screen was unharmed, though the same could probably not be said for Netto's hand.

Meijin finally felt it time to intervene, and restrained Netto before his second raised fist could make contact. "Both of you stop this nonsense at once! This is not-"

"Useless!" Netto shouted breathlessly, fighting for all he was worth. "You are so useless! I can't- Meijin-san, let me go!"

"I will when you stop acting like a child!"

"I'm not- this is serious!" Meijin was proving surprisingly strong. Unable to break free, Netto gave Rockman a venomous look. "If you don't want to help, I'll do it myself! Meijin-san... _let me go_..."

A shout cut through the chaos like a gunshot. "Netto-san, you idiot!"

Rockman jumped at the noise. He whirled around, buster raised... only to see Roll back away in alarm. He had forgotten she was here. With a sheepish apology, he morphed his hand back.

"You _can't_ go, Netto-san!" Roll continued, still a bit shaken. "Have you forgotten that you have a wife and unborn child at home?" Her words accomplished what half a morning of yelling did not: Netto was rendered speechless. "What if something happens to you? What am I supposed to tell Meiru-chan, huh? That you didn't love her enough to think about her before you threw your life away?!"

"I... it's not..."

"I've got news for you, Netto-san," said Roll, smacking her hands on her hips, "You are not responsible for the entire world. You have your own responsibilities now. You are a husband. You are a father. You have a _family_ now, Netto-san! Are you telling me that these things are less important than your Net Savior duties?"

"I didn't say that!" Netto objected.

"But you're acting like it. You told Meiru-chan you could do this. You promised her you would find a good balance between work and home."

Netto shrugged out Meijin's grip, having calmed down enough to be released. "Yeah, and I-"

"You are not!" snarled Roll. "Rockman is right: you are making rash, hot-headed decisions. You are being reckless, careless, downright _stupid_! You can't do this anymore, Netto-san!"

"Then what _do_ I do? I can't just sit here; look! The door! It's gone!"

Both Roll and he, Rockman, were caught unaware by this statement. With a horrified turn back to the surveillance feed, it was confirmed: the right-hand door had fallen. The left was still up, so the doorway was not yet wide enough for the forklift to go through, but a sudden, angled blow from the rear of the vehicle left the remaining door shuddering. It would not hold out much longer.

"Back-up hasn't arrived yet, as far as we can tell the Net Police already here are doing nothing, and I'm supposed to stand here and watch?!"

"No," Roll shook her head, "I didn't say you have to watch. I said you have to find a balance. That means you have to rely on others, sometimes. Send Rockman and me!"

Rockman's gut reaction was to tell her no, she couldn't come (she wasn't supposed to be here in the first place), but Netto beat him to the punch. "We tried hacking it... aah, Rockman, I guess I'll plug you in..."

"No, I mean use a Bubble."

Netto, stooping down to pick his chair off the floor, froze. "What?"

"A Dimensional Bubble!" said Roll. "We could physically go downstairs. They're not connected to the Network, are they? So nothing could substantiate but the two of us... right? And if we got run over the... the bubble would pop and we'd... plug..." Her voice grew quieter and less confident as three sets of eyes bored in on her. "I-I'm sorry! Is that not a good idea?"

It was the perfect solution. Rockman could go downstairs alone. With his speed and agility, he could get inside the forklift and manually shut it off. If the controls didn't work, he could use his superior strength to push it over. And if for some reason neither of these could be accomplished or his bubble popped during the process, he would just plug-out into his PET. Nobody would be at risk (except for the Bubble Generator), and no other Navi or virus even knew about the belt, much less would try to hack into it.

"No, it's..." Netto stumbled. The three of them had spent all morning trying to fix one such device; why nobody had thought of this solution was dumbfounding. "It's perfect!" he breathed at last. "Roll, you're a genius!"

"It is a good idea," Rockman told her gratefully, "but can we make it work, Netto-kun? We still don't know why Generator 2 broke this morning, and we have never tried to simulate combat with a Bubble before..."

"Pfft! Combat? It's a forklift, not a Net Battle," said Netto with growing excitement. "So what if you can't use your Rockbuster? You won't need it. Meijin-san, what do you think?"

"No need for formalities." Meijin retrieved his laptop with a weary sigh. "I think it's our only option at this point. Whoever got inside that forklift did a very good job locking us out. What do we need, Netto-kun?"

"Generator 3 is upstairs in our test room," said Netto, "and I'll also need Rockman's PET, which is in my office."

"Let's not waste time, then," Meijin replied. He reached into a pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a short cable which he plugged first into his laptop and next into the console Netto was using. "You two," he said, addressing both Navis, "get inside. You won't be able to get upstairs through the network, by now there should be firewalls between the servers."

"Okay." While Rockman had been lucky on his way here to not run into any, the firewalls had to be up by now. If not, SciLabs had a much bigger problem than a forklift. Netto did not have his PET, so Meijin's laptop would have to do as a form of transportation. "Netto-kun?"

Netto quickly gave the voice command. " , , Plug-In! Let's go!"

Rockman let himself dissipate. After a brief flash of disorientation, he reassembled inside Meijin's laptop. He had never been in here before (at least not while conscious), but he found it to be an unsurprising sight. The desktop was flooded with icons of all sorts, most of which had names incongruous with the picture above them, and there were at least two dozen minimized programs currently running goodness knew what. He was not a claustrophobic person, but with enough time in this clutter he was sure he could learn to be. Three milliseconds later, Roll appeared as well. She was not as lucky as he had been in arriving; she opened her eyes to find an icon nearly touching her nose and, with a small cry of shock, fell backwards.

"Roll-chan!"

"Aiee... what is all this?" she moaned, eyeing their travel arrangements with apprehension.

Rockman wound his way through the mess to Roll. She accepted his outstretched hands and kept close after he pulled her up. There was really no space to stand much farther apart.

"Rockman?" A video window opened, showing Meijin's distorted face. "Good. Please do not touch anything."

"We won't," Rockman promised. "But please be careful in the hallways, Meijin-san! Don't let Netto-kun do anything..." there was no nice way to phrase it, "...too stupid."

"No need for formalities," Meijin agreed with a nod. He shut his laptop and the video disappeared.

Once again alone in the semi-darkness, Rockman returned his attention Roll. "You were supposed to go home after you saw Netto-kun, you know," he told her.

"I know," she said with an apologetic smile. "I lied. But I don't think I could have gotten out, even if I'd gone right away... wouldn't the exit have been firewalled when the alarm went off?" She'd been hoping to get caught along for the ride, and had succeeded. "But see? Aren't you glad I'm here? I can help you!" she sing-songed.

She'd also guessed the topic he was about to bring up. "Yes, your idea to use a Bubble is brilliant... but about that, Roll-chan..."

Her smile faded instantly. "I can't come with you, can I?' she sighed. "Why not, Rockman? I'm good at Dimensional Bubbles! You saw me, I did the entire Happy Happy Love dance!"

"I know you did, but that's no-"

"I picked up that rose! You said that was hard to do!"

"It is, but-"

"But what?" Roll demanded.

Rockman had a simple answer. "We only have one working Bubble Generator."

"What?"

"I broke the second one this morning," he admitted. "I know you want to help, Roll-chan, but with one belt..."

Roll scrutinized his face. After a thoughtful minute, she relented with a sigh. "I suppose it doesn't matter if that's the truth or not; I'd be left behind either way, right?" She clasped her hands over her Navi icon. With a serene look, she continued softly. "Rockman... You know, you're more similar to Netto-san than you think."

"What? I'm nothing like Netto-kun!" he exclaimed. They were nothing alike. At the moment, Rockman wasn't even sure if he wanted _any_thing to do with Netto. He was more than willing to go downstairs and stop a forklift, but that had no correlation to forgiving Netto for (figuratively) punching him in the face not three minutes ago. Their argument was by no means solved; it was just put on hold. He had every intention of chewing Netto out once this was over.

"Yes you are," said Roll. "Both of you like to try to take the weight of the entire world upon your shoulders. You always insist on doing things alone," she shut her eyes, and her Navi icon began to glow, "but that's ridiculous, because you're never alone. Even if you won't let me go with you, I can still help... in a little way, at least..." She drew her hands away slowly, and the glow went with them until it separated from her icon entirely. She was left cupping a small, brilliant pink sphere of energy in the scant few inches between their bodies and, before he could react, thrust it into his own icon with a firm shove.

As always, the rush was electric. What was supposed to come out as, "You don't have to do that," became an inhale between clenched teeth.

"Arguments are tiring, aren't they?" Roll no. "Especially when both opponents are so stubborn. Give Netto-san some time, he will get his priorities straight."

Extremities still tingling, Rockman was at a loss for a reply. She was right, of course; dealing with Netto in a foul mood was exhausting. With his newfound warmth, Rockman's resolve was strengthened He would forget the cruel things Netto had said to him this morning, forget how he ran away from the team's disappointment, forget how he and his Operator had come to physical blows for the first time in their lives... He had a job to do and, because Cross Fusion would not be involved, he didn't need Netto. He could plug in to the Bubble Generator by himself, turn it on himself, handle this problem by himself. If and when Netto came to his senses and apologized, Rockman would consider listening.

But that was not the point of Roll's reassurance, was it? He wasn't alone. He still had Roll. Confident, calming Roll. She knew why Netto could not go downstairs. She was the only one who had kept a cool head and thought of a viable solution. She was the one standing here now, offering him all the support she could give. She was also, and most importantly, standing much too close. It was so cramped in this computer, it couldn't be helped, but... with less than a step they would be touching... with barely any motion he could embrace her... he could... could...

"Rockmaaan! Are you ready?"

...and of course Netto choose this moment to butt in, loud and capricious as always. It was hard to believe that only three minutes ago they'd been in a semi-fistfight.

"Aah, um, yes! One second... Thank you, Roll-chan!" Rockman gripped her shoulders, feeling it a necessary gesture to emphasize his next point. "Please," he stressed with a squeeze, "stay here."

"You're the one who needs to be careful," she said, annoyed. But she brightened for a final "Good luck!" before he plugged out.

Muscle memory from months of practice guided Rockman through the Bubble Generator on auto-pilot. Two firewalls, a written password, a joint verbal password with Netto... through the initiation process, and when Rockman clipped the belt on, he had no trouble shrinking his oversized bubble down to a perfect, form-fitting skin. Everything running smoothly, the three humans (Robert had been picked up somewhere along the way, and from the cup in his hand appeared to have succeeded in getting coffee) and one Navi set off down the hallway.

As they approached the stairs, they could hear the whir of heavy, motorized machinery below. It was punctuated by occasional thuds and crashes; the forklift was still at work. Rockman took the lead down the stairs. He paused at the halfway landing and motioned Netto, Meijin, and George to halt behind him. Cautiously, he peeped around the bend.

There were no doors on the staircase entrance, but Rockman's view of the first floor was small. All that was visible was the tiled floor and a spray of dirt. Rockman went down the steps one by one, hugging the handrail. After two steps a knocked over potted plant came into view (and explained the mess on the floor). At four steps, tipped over and in some places ripped chairs came into view. Halfway at seven, most of the room could be seen, and it was in shambles. Tables were upended. Wood, glass, dirt, and upholstery littered the entire floor. Only a vague frame of the Welcome Desk was left standing, and the rest was in jagged, widely scattered pieces.

_Bob..._

Rockman only spared a moment worrying about the quirky security guard; a much larger problem lay right beyond his desk. The glass double doors, supposedly bullet and shatter proof, were gone. Instead, a gaping, cracked hole opened to the outside. A single police car was parked halfway in front of it, as though it was uncertain if it wanted to block the entranceway or not. A policeman was crouched behind the trunk. He had his weapon out and trained on something to Rockman's left, presumably the forklift. Not far behind him was another officer who had his gun ambiguously pointed outwards, presumably on the lookout for more forklifts.

Rockman bit back a sigh at their completely ineffective and dangerous antics. Net Police did not routinely carry weapons that were capable of killing, as they so rarely had to deal with real-life threats; they carried things that were meant to incapacitate or stun. Even if by some miracle these two were equipped with higher grade firepower, what good was any of that against an unmanned forklift? And how could a single car make a barricade? A forklift's forks would go right through that car like parallel knives through warm butter. Though he could hear more sirens in the distance, Rockman now shared confidence with Netto in this plan. He was needed here.

When Rockman took three more steps down, he was spotted by the officer behind the car. The officer did not agree with Rockman's reasoning.

"Halt! It's not safe to..." His face lost all color. He stumbled backwards, looking skywards. "D-dimensional...?!"

"Crap," Netto muttered, leaping the last four steps to in one bound. He waved to get the officers' attention and made a shushing motion.

"Is that... Hikari Netto? Then how is...?! What's going on?!" the second officer gasped.

"Shut uuup," hissed Netto.

Meijin stepped down to do some pantomiming as well, which Rockman had no patience to wait for. He peered around the corner to observe the source of today's trouble. True to their surveillance, a forklift was in fact ramming the laboratory doors backwards. The second door had now lost its bottom hinge and the bottom half was warped crookedly backwards.

"Netto-kun, I'm going."

"Mm," Netto nodded his approval.

Rockman ducked and ran out into the lobby, hugging the wall closest. He had really given no thought to how he was going to do this; it was a very Netto-like attitude and exactly what Roll did not want, but how exactly did one plan out an attack against a forklift? This required good old-fashioned improvisation and Rockman trusted his reflexes to see him through this task.

The truck frame of the forklift was black, and the empty cab was orange. The paint was chipped off in places and the metal dented badly. There was a clear "LGV" written on the side underneath the manufacturer's logo, which Rockman guessed to mean "Laser Guided Vehicle", but inbetween the masts and hydraulics he could see a recess into the carriage that was wide enough for a single human to stand in. Hopefully this meant it also had manual controls and, more importantly, a working Emergency Off button. Nearly all of the instruments in the lab came with a large, red "EMO" button... surely this forklift must, too. Rockman slowed as he neared his target. There was no way of knowing if someone had simply hacked the path decision sub-routines or if an actual Navi of some sort was inside, controlling the unit. The damage around the room appeared to be rather specific, though, so Rockman was betting on the latter. He also, since it was going backwards and he was approaching it head-on, was expecting it to notice him and take some sort of action before he could reach it.

He was not disappointed in this assumption. Nine meters away the forklift dashed his hopes of calmly climbing inside by altering its course towards him and charging full speed. Rockman altered his own to be perpendicular, and ran through a knocked over table and chair setting, thinking this would impede his pursuer They did not; a quick swerve and the truck went around them with grace. This was almost proof that somebody was inside driving, and also made Rockman notice a little spray of liquid that came out the back as it swayed back onto course. Was it leaking something? It was clear, so it couldn't be oil... and that far back on the cab it couldn't be from the hydraulics of the carriage... What would be in the back by the counterweight that- The counterweight. Rockman had a limited knowledge of forklifts, but he knew like most levers, the forks needed a counterweight to keep the truck from falling forward when they were raised. That counterweight was not just a dead weight; it was probably something heavy and practical, like the engine.

"Netto-kun!" he called out, "There's no way this is a diesel engine, is it? Is it a hydrogen fuel cell?"

"Huh?"

"It's leaking something!" Rockman bolted sideways, making another ninety-degree turn. The forklift was faster than him and catching up quickly, but made wider turns. So long as he kept moving...

"I dunno! Does it say on it somewhere?"

"Not on the outside!" Another hairpin turn, but this time he avoided going through obstacles. All of the things he could think of that could be leaking were flammable, and he was not keen to have the forklift hit something and create a spark. "Maybe inside it does, but..."

As always, the simplest (and most dangerous) solution to getting inside was going to be the easiest: Rockman stopped dead in his tracks and let the forklift charge him. He braced himself and, at the last second, jumped. The forks were only raised knee-high, so it did not take much effort to jump atop them, but the change in velocity (and impact against the mast) was painful. Luckily, Rockman managed to turn and hit his side more than his front, which protected the precious electronics in the buckle of his belt. His Bubble was still intact.

In the background, Netto and Rob cheered.

The masts were too tall for Rockman to climb over, so he went around the side. He grasped the front support of the cab and, with a deft swing, whipped around the back and landed successfully in the rider's stand.

"Well?"

The controls were surprisingly simple. There was a joystick to control speed and direction, a touchscreen which was lit blue with "LOCKED" in large red letters across it, and the expected emergency off button. Other than company branding, there was no indication about the battery type.

"It doesn't say what the battery is, Netto-kun. Stand back, I'm going to try and unlock the controls!"

This was also a dumb idea- what if this was a trap, rigged to explode when touched?- but when both parties of humans were out of sight in stairwell and behind police car, Rockman tapped the touchscreen. An electric shock shot up his arm, sizzled like fire, and Rockman yelped; somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard Netto echo it. He lost his vision when the Bubble went opaque and Rockman was terrified the belt would be fried, but when the pain subsided a moment later, there appeared to be no consequence. The forklift was still locked, he was still in his Bubble, and the belt...

"Netto-kun? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, are you? What happened?"

"The controls are electrified, please tell the Net Police not to touch them. I am okay, but my Belt... it... I can't control the output anymore, it's stuck on automatic!"

"You're kidding me..." Netto moaned.

In their current research, Rockman often operated his Dimensional Bubbles manually. To keep Bubbles uniform across a complicated, moving or changing surface required a finesse which their automatic controls had not yet mastered. The goal was, of course, to have the machine be fully automated, but... Cautiously, Rockman made the Bubble expand around his right hand. It ballooned out, thinning in a way he wasn't used to, but stayed intact.

"Hm! Netto-kun, it looks like the belt is trying to keep the Bubble's conductivity constant rather than keep the overall thickness uniform."

"Yeah?" Netto called back. "Will it be okay?"

"I think so. If I-"

"Rockman! Get out... of my way..." On the touchscreen, a triumphant Roll was removing the "LOCKED" letters one by one.

Rockman was aghast. "R-roll-chan! What are you- I told you to-!" This was exactly what he had told her _not_ to do.

"Meijin-san made a hole, so I slipped in! I'm in the fork controls; the engine is still blocked. I can-"

"No! Get out of there!"

"It's fine, there's nobody here. I am going to-"

"Roll-chan, this is dangerous! Plug out now! I told you to stay with Meijin-san!" How could Roll admonish him for being a risk-taker when she did things like this? There was definitely somebody controlling the engine, and even if the forks had separate controls which had been abandoned, it couldn't be hard for that person to come back. They were the ones putting up the firewalls, after all. They must know Roll had broken in.

Roll did not listen. "It's fine, I'll be quick. I am raising the forks," and indeed, with a clunk then a whir, they began to rise, "so the forklift will be top-heavy. Get it to turn at a high speed and it will tip over!" When they reached their top position with another shuddering clunk, Roll morphed her arm into its trademark bow. "Roll Arrow!"

Roll's heart-shaped projectile caused a prolonged flash of light off-screen. At the same time, the forklift stopped dead in its tracks.

"There! I've destroyed the controls, so the forks should-"

The screen went dark.

"R... roll-chan!" Rockman's panic was immediate and all-consuming. "Roll-chan!"

The screen came back to life for a brief moment. Nobody was in sight. Then Roll screamed, a high-pitched shriek of surprise or pain he couldn't tell, and the screen died again.

"Roll-chan!" He pounded the panel without thinking, and found it no longer electrified. Rockman used this newfound opportunity to smash the emergency off button, but it had no visible effect and did not stay depressed like it should under normal operation. "Roll-chan! Roll-chan! Netto-kun Roll-chan is-"

"What's wrong?!"

There was no time to talk; the forklift reignited. The touchscreen again glowed with a "LOCKED" message, and Rockman removed his hands right before an audible crackle of static electricity sparked its way across the controls. They were electrified again. There was no longer anything Rockman could do from the inside, so he scrambled out of the driver's stand. His best option now way to try and tip it, like Roll had suggested.

"Hey! Hey! Over here! I'm right behind you!" Rockman skipped a few steps backwards, goading the forklift to chase him. He had no idea if the Navi inside could hear him, but it spun on the spot and gave chase all the same. Rockman ran a short four meters and turned at a right angle. The forklift followed and tilted on its wider turn, though unfortunately slowed and caught itself before it fell.

There was no _time_ for this, Roll was in trouble, he had to stop this thing and get inside it _now_. No longer caring about being cautious or what was leaking out the back of the forklift, Rockman ran to the nearest furniture- which he had run through earlier- a tipped over end table with magazines scattered nearby and a squat, upholstered armchair. He did not have quite the super-human strength in a Bubble that he and Netto did together in Cross Fusion, but so long as his Bubble didn't tear he had enough power to pick up both of these things. The end table was easier to grasp and thrown first; it impacted loudly against the forklift, a wide crack splitting along its top, and fell to the floor where it was pushed easily out of the way. Rockman had time to raise the armchair, but not enough to throw it. The raised forks ripped straight through the upholstery, and had he not held on tight and lifted his lower body up to dangle from the chair, Rockman would have been run over.

Rockman swung to launch himself sideways out of harm's way, and landed on all fours. The forklift made an attempt to follow his motion, but the added weight of the chair caught on the forks was too much and it tipped precariously onto two wheels. Rockman launched himself at the cab, striking it hard. His impact was the final blow; with a resounding crash they both fell to the floor.

"Aaaie..." Gingerly, Rockman picked himself out of the mess, amazed that his Bubble was still perfectly intact. "Netto-kun, it's..." he shook his head to clear it, "it's Roll-chan! Hurry, she's inside and I don't know what happened!"

Netto's rag-tag team of three came running, along with six Net Police from outside.

"She plugged out!" Meijin called. "She went through my laptop and out."

"Out?"

"I gave her the password to get out of SciLab's firewall and go home. I have a record of her data passing back through my laptop when you started calling for her. She must have plugged out all the way back to her PET."

"Is she okay?!" Though this could have been a conscious decision on her part, Rockman had a feeling she would not have left entirely if able. A PET plug-out was normally something done for speed if your Operator called or if, during a Net Battle, your life was in danger.

"She wasn't deleted," was the simple reply.

Rockman's knees gave out. He sank back to the floor. Roll hadn't died in her confrontation, but that said nothing about why she'd plugged out or what state she had left in... or what state she was in now.

"Rockman, I'm sure she's fine..." said Netto. "Hey, guys!" He addressed the Net Police now busy with the forklift. "You got this? Can we go? Rockman, get out of your Bubble and you can-"

His hand extended in an offer for help up, Netto was interrupted by a sudden flicker and dimming of the fluorescent lights above them. This was an indication that something was drawing large amounts of energy from their generators and, in his many years of working with Papa and Netto at SciLabs, Rockman only knew of one thing that used this much power: the Dimensional Generator. From the way their faces fell, Rockman could tell Netto and Meijin had both come to this conclusion as well.

"No way," Netto breathed, racing for the window at the halfway landing of the stairs. He pressed his face to it, trying to get a good view of the sky. "Nothing. Was it put somewhere else with the Dimensional Converter, Meijin-san?"

"No need... for..." Meijin's usual mantra was cut off by a curse. "It's the Generator. It's the Generator, not the Converter. It has to be here... but..." His fingers were flying across his laptop, and his concentration on whatever he was doing caused him to fall silent.

"But what?" Rockman asked, afraid by this response. The Dimensional Converter was the satellite dish on their roof used to place a remote Dimensional Area around a spot of interest; the Dimensional _Generator_ was the machine that produced such Areas, and by itself could only produce them here at SciLabs.

"I can't get into the Dimensional Core!" Meijin sounded incredulous. "I designed the security for this; it should have notified me if anything..." He cursed again. "There's a Dimensional Area in the building and I have no idea where."

"Our satellite network is down!" one of the Net Police holding a PET gasped.

"What?!"

"Not down; we're locked out!" another officer amended.

"Is the Dimensional Area just blocking the signal?" Netto pondered outloud. "Is it on the roof?"

"No, radio signals can still pass through a-"

"The roof!" Rockman clapped a hand to his head; in this mess he had completely forgotten about it. "Meijin-san, we saw debris falling off the roof! I don't know if it was just wind or..." With a jolt of horror, he understood. "We were in a camera near the satellite dishes, a human must have gotten in directly through a dish itself, not through the network or radio jamming... The forklift was just a diversion!"

It was all a diversion. Just by chance he and Roll had seen the real threat and, because of a petty argument with his Operator and how much time they'd wasted with said diversion, Rockman did not even think to mention it. Now their satellite system was hacked, a Dimensional Area was blocking any access to their satellite dishes, Roll was who knew where, and Netto, already half a flight up the stairs, was now racing up them two at a time. This bad day was getting progressively worse. Going home to check on Roll, as desperately as he wanted to, was going to have to wait. She was alive, and that was all that mattered for now. Rockman let instinct take over; his body righted itself and charged after his Operator. The sound of multiple people protesting, telling him to wait, bounced off as a minor annoyance. Netto was not going to wait, and he couldn't let Netto go alone. Angry at each other or not, this was a fact hard-wired into his brain. He had to follow. He took the stairs three at a time.

There was only one staircase with roof access, and this was not the one. Those stairs were at the other end of the building, and came out right next to the rooftop helipad. Navi and Operator reached the fourth floor together and squabbled in breathless gasps as they barreled down the hallway.

"Netto-kun, we can't- it's dangerous!"

"Just gonna look- see if it's on- on the roof!"

"That's dangerous! Let's- look at surveillance!" Netto was pulling ahead, his forever unbuttoned labcoat billowing out behind him, and Rockman grabbed the flapping hem to yank his Operator to a halt. "Don't need- to go up!"

"Oh," Netto panted, "Yeah, that... that makes more sense."

"Need to stop... and _think_," Rockman admonished. They weren't far from their intended target, the other set of stairs, and Rockman was not keen to stay out in the open if this staircase was being watched. Thankfully there were also bathrooms at this end of the hall. He attempted to push Netto into the closer of the two, but was met by a surprising resistance.

"Rockman! This is the _girls_ room!"

Today, Rockman could not find the strength to be embarrassed by this fact. It was an open door to a room with no cameras, ideal for hiding, and the mens room was an additional six meters away (and thus, six meters closer to the stairs he wanted to avoid). He cracked the door and called softly, "Hello? Is anyone in here?" When he got no response, Netto was shoved unceremoniously inside. "Watch out for Asano-san and Meijin-san, will you? I think they followed us and I do not want to be seen."

"Seen?" Netto grumbled. He was leaning over to check for feet in the stalls, obviously still uncomfortable with their hiding spot.

"Whoever is on the roof might be watching the stairs. I don't want them to see me. Should I plug-out of the belt?" He'd only ever worn a Dimensional Bubble outside of their lab once, and for most of that trip he had been smuggled around in a labcoat, boots, glasses, and a large hard hat to avoid attention. It was only when they stopped to buy flowers (to bring home to Meiru) that anyone saw him, and even then they'd gone to a store right outside the Castillo theme park and told people he was in costume for the stage show, getting flowers for a fellow actor.

Netto took up post at the door, shaking his head negative. "Nn. If they've got eyes on the stairs then they were probably watching the forklift too. They've already seen you."

"Oh..." Of course. The forklift had been making intelligent decisions, following him... watching him. True, it was only a matter of time until their Bubble work became public knowledge, they'd always known that, but this really was not the way Rockman had intended it to happen.

All the same, Netto kept guard and ushered a winded Meijin, Robert, and two Net Police into the bathroom. After a quick round of, "What were you thinking?" from Meijin, they got down to business. Yes, there was a Dimensional Area on the roof. It was relatively small for an Area, only covering half of the roof, but contained inside were all three of their satellite dishes and what appeared to be two NetNavis. What these Navis were trying to accomplish was unknown, Meijin could not shut down the Generator, and none of the three helicopters in the area were available for immediate use. On the verge of asking if this attack was malicious and a jump indeed necessary, Rockman was interrupted by a call from the Chief of Net Police and IPC Chairman of the Board, Ijuuin Enzan.

"Enzan!" Netto cheered. "Long time no see, buddy. What's the good news?"

Meijin set his laptop down on the sink counter so Enzan could address everyone. Though tight-lipped, the essentials were answered: Yes, the intent was malicious, yes, Netto should prepare for a jump, and...

Ice blue eyes narrowed at the Navi in the room. "Netto. I thought you said the Area was on the roof."

"It is," said Netto.

Enzan's penetrating stare did not leave Rockman. Navi and Operator came to the conclusion at the same time: Enzan knew nothing about Dimensional Bubbles. To him, Rockman being here outside of the Area was a physical impossibility. With similar cries of shock, Rockman ducked as Netto pushed him down.

"Or... er, that... that is to say..."

If this was not the way Rockman wanted their enemies to find out about Dimensional Bubbles, it was even _less_ the way he wanted Enzan to find out. They'd had their doubts about how Enzan and the Net Police would react to their new technology, even if Meijin was enthusiastic about the project, so... in Netto's words, they had been waiting to finish the project to ask forgiveness rather than ask permission before starting.

"Nevermind," Enzan massaged his forehead with his knuckles, "You can fill me in later. For now, prepare for Cross Fusion. We will try to keep them out of anything crucial until you get in."

"Great. Rockmaaan, come help me pick chips. What do you want?"

In the time since they'd become Net Saviors, Cross Fusion technology had not changed much. A PET could be pre-loaded with eight battle chips instead of five, but it was still the same combining of bodies, the same sensation of being one but still having to act synchronously with what was, essentially, yourself. Rockman took a deep breath. Netto was going to be jumping out of a helicopter, a task which if done incorrectly would lead to nothing but death. They had to work in unison and, at the very least, Rockman would have to fake that to some degree of success. To this end, he joined Netto at the sink counter where their collection of battle chips was being laid out.

Netto's PET holder only had room for a few key battle chips, and nowadays he did not routinely carry the spare chip holder filled with the rest of his collection. All the same, he always had a few more somewhere on his person. He was now fishing a few out of his labcoat and pants pockets, and George was offering the few he had stashed in similar places. "Okay, so let's see, the usual sword and cannon... you up for a Program Advance, Rockman?"

"I don't want to damage the building."

"Zeta Cannon it is. We can shoot that up and not hit the building. What else? Stone Cube, Dash... Aqua Tower... Why do you have Aqua Tower, George? Your Navi's default weapon is a water cannon!"

Netto had not gotten the hint that no, he was _not_ in fact up to attempting a Program Advance. Unwilling to argue and hoping to salvage one of the remaining five slots, he acquiesced with a mumbled, "Life Aura." It was still the best defensive chip that existed and, at his insistence, one was forever kept in the PET holder.

"Rockman?" Combination of tone and chip choice drew Netto's attention. He gave his Navi a gentle prod with his closest elbow. "Hey. What's up?"

The answer didn't need to be spoken. Their Synchro Rate was still in the toilet. Enzan had given them nothing to prepare themselves for what was on the roof. They were being ordered to fight blind, something Rockman hated doing, and if he screwed up their entry his Operator would die. Roll was who knew where and in what state, and after putting their Bubble technology through the strangest, probably most difficult test run it had ever received, her little burst of healing and encouragement felt like centuries ago. To top this off, the normally unshakable Enzan was now in an infuriatingly detail-absent panic, saying they needed to get on the roof as quick as possible.

"We're ready to go," Netto said with a confidence directed more at his Navi than his friend. "What's the ETA on our helicopter?"

Enzan glanced over the top of the camera filming him, presumably searching for the answer from someone in the room, then frowned. "What?" A mumble off-screen was followed by, "What do you mean they're all grounded? Why?!"

The room exploded.

"What?!"

"Grounded?"

"Were they infected with viruses? Is this attack really that coordinated?!"

"How will we get Hikari-san to the roof now?"

Oddly enough, Netto added nothing to the exchange beyond the initial surprise. But then his jaw set, shoulders squared, and Rockman knew this meant nothing good.

"Enzan. Enzan! Everybody shut _up_ for a minute! Enzan!" When sufficient attention was gained, Netto continued, "I have an idea how to get to the roof without a helicopter." Then, as an afterthought, "You won't like it."

Enzan placed his elbows on his desk and folded his hands together in front of his mouth, weighing the situation over in silence. At last he asked, "Is it dangerous?"

"Maybe."

"Will it work?"

"I don't know. I have to talk it over with Meijin-san."

Rockman was feeling faint. This idea was sounding worse by the second. "Netto-kun..."

Netto was not going to have any protests, and held up a palm to shush his Navi. "If I can make it work, should I attempt it?"

There was a long pause as blue eyes searched Netto's chocolate. "One of ICP's orbiting communications satellites has been put into a rapid decaying orbit. The current projected crash site is not water."

Netto cursed, a sentiment that echoed around the room. "Not water" meant "populated". Rockman gripped the counter for support, now truly faint.

"How much time do we have to do a course correction?" Robert spoke up.

"Until communication with the satellite is severed."

"And I bet you good money the two Navis on the roof are trying to do just that," Netto muttered. Thus, the decision was made. Netto hung up on Enzan so plans could be made in secret. "Meijin-san, please calculate the minimum speed we need for entry and Cross Fusion. It's a small Dimensional Area, right? So it should be pretty thin."

"Well yes, but-?" Meijin was not allowed to finish his question.

"Robert. Remember that time we brought a Handy virus into the lab with a Bubble? To see if it could still float, and it did? Do you think the same thing could be done with your Dash chip here?"

"_What?! _Net-" Taken off guard by this statement, Rockman was even more surprised by the speed at which Netto had him in a headlock. It was the shock more than the pressure on his windpipe that silenced him.

"I know it's dumb, okay? Just hear me out. We'll ride it together and charge the Area head on, or... we can try fling up and dropping in? If neither will we'll have to wait for a helicopter. Enzan's gotta get one here eventually; we borrowed a news helicopter once, he'll figure out something. _You_," he addressed Rockman here, "come with me. Guys, give us a minute."

Rockman was dragged out the bathroom in his headlock, but freed himself with a shove the second they were out the door. There were no words for this stupidity. A Dash chip came from the Fishy virus, and manifested itself as a smaller version of said virus: a sleek air glider with black and green bird markings. It flew, and the idea was to stand on top of it and dash into your enemies... but it was small, more suited for gliding than actually flying.

"Netto-kun, what are-"

"Rockman, don't-"

"No! I'm not... we can't! My Bubble is stuck on automatic, I don't trust it, and... and I'm not even... You get an initial boost with a Dash chip, so maybe going straight would be okay... if we fell we'd just fall on the roof... but going _up_?! I have no idea how high I can propel a Dash... and you want to ride with me?! I've never had... I don't know if two will fit... Netto-kun, if we fell..."

"I know, I know, but let's just do the math, okay?"

Again, Netto had his own ideas on how to solve the situation and would not listen to reason. And again, their complete disagreement with one another was making Cross Fusion look like an impossibility. Roll was the only one who had a good counter-argument earlier; maybe it would still work now.

"Netto-kun, you are forgetting Meiru-chan again. You know you can't take these kinds of risk anymore."

"I know what I'm doing," Netto said simply, turning away.

"What?" Rockman gasped. Was Netto going to ignore this fact now that Roll wasn't here? "You do not! We've never done anything remotely like this before, how can-"

"I'm not forgetting the baby, okay?! I know what will happen if we screw this up!" Netto growled.

"Then why are you so set on doing it?"

"Because I have to!"

"But-"

"But nothing!" Netto roared. He spun around, grabbed Rockman by the shoulders, and bashed their heads together hard. The pain shut them both up. For a moment they glared eye-to-eye at each other, but when Netto broke the silence his voice was much softer than before. "Enzan knows about the baby. I told him myself. Why do you think we've seen hide nor hair of him for the last five months? He hasn't even given us any low level missions."

"Oh." True, nothing big that required their services had happened for about a year, but Netto was right; they'd gotten nothing at _all _these last few months.

"And why do you think he told us about the falling satellite over a possibly insecure line? Big pieces are going to be land in a real populated area. He never ordered us to try my idea; he just told us the truth about what will happen if we don't. This was always my decision to make." Netto made a small "hm" of regret here. "Our decision, I guess. I can't do this without you."

"Netto-kun..."

Netto gave a deep sigh, shutting his eyes."I'll make a deal with you: we only do this if we can do it going straight, no flying up. And we can practice here in the hallway! We can get a speed gun from the Police, _one_ of their cars has to have one, and clock ourselves."

With their foreheads still touching, Netto's sigh tickled Rockman's Bubble. His suggestions were almost... reasonable, but Rockman couldn't shake his uncertainty. "But if we go straight I will have to stay in my Bubble until the very last second. I am not sure I can plug-out of a Bubble back into my PET and initiate Cross Fusion that quickly."

"Then we'll fly up at a really low angle, you pop your Bubble a second early, and I get flung the last bit of the way."

"But-"

"Rockmaaan," Netto opened his eyes again. "That's as good as it gets. It's a decent option, and at the moment our only option. We can do this." His hands traveled from Rockman's shoulders to his upper arms and he gave his Navi a confident part-rub-part-shake. "We can do this, but I need you to be one-hundred percent in. If you say no, we won't."

"Wait... what? I can say no?" Rockman could not think of a single other time in which one of Netto's let's-get-psyched-up-to-try-something-crazy speeches had ended with the option of declining.

"You can say no."

"...really?"

"Really!" Netto chuckled, pulling his face away but not letting go yet. "I'm asking you to trust me, but I also trust _you_; if you say we can't, we can't! Like I said, Enzan will get a chopper here somehow." His focus traveled left and right between Rockman's two eyes, and his smile crooked up at one corner. "Do you know what I like best about Dimensional Bubbles?"

It was off-topic, and Rockman could not give an answer on the spot. "What?"

"This."

"Eh?"

"This! Standing here with you. We're the exact same height, same build, our noses... and except for the color, our eyes... We really are identical, huh 'nii-san?"

This morning had been terrible. Roll was, for all intents and purposes, missing in action. A satellite was about to crash to Earth and, to top this off, he and his operator were going to chuck themselves skyward at a crazy speed _on top_ of a four story building. And suddenly none of that mattered anymore.

"We are, aren't we?" Rockman marveled, also taking a chance to scrutinize the facial features of his brother. Brother! He could not recall the last time they'd used those terms. "You know, when you had me wearing your labcoat that one week," Netto gave a loud snort; it was the week they'd been testing Bubbles with various percentages of surface contact (which was most easily accomplished by trying one arm in a sleeve, both arms, coat on, coat fully buttoned) and Rockman had spontaneously combusted Netto's supposedly flame-resistant labcoat, "George told me a few times that we were uncannily similar! He asked if Papa made me that way intentionally!"

"Haha, really? Aah, remind me not to bring you around Papa then. You know how he gets."

"Mm," Rockman agreed. Growing up, Rockman was always the taller of the two partners. Netto was a growing boy, however, and surpassed his non-growing Navi at the age of 13... or should have. Roll was the first one to notice that her best friend was taller than she and he had both always been, and it was Papa who figured out that the brothers were in fact growing together at the same rate. He tried to put a manual stop to it with a patch to Rockman's programming, but their Synchro Rate took an alarming nosedive and, despite his longstanding misgivings about their link, was forced to delete the patch and let what may happen happen. Papa would not be pleased with this newfound, reaffirmed identicality. "Oh! But Mama would like to see us!"

"Yeah; that's what I was planning for her birthday, to smuggle you home! Didn't I ask you about it?"

"As usual, no you did not. I want to, though, even though she will cry."

"You think?"

"I know. Remember when Papa put her and me in a Dimensional Area?" Rockman reminded.

"I know. But she still liked it. I think we should. What else can we do?" Netto brightened. "Oh, I can teach you to rollerblade! We can have races! And soccer- or would you prefer baseball? And... wow..."

The word "race" brought up the recent memory of chasing Netto down this hallway. "You know, Netto-kun," he said with a pout, "I think you are faster than me."

"What?"

"Just now, when we ran down the hallway! We got to the top of the stairs at pretty much the same time, but I fell behind and grabbed your coat to stop you. In an all-out race, you won."

Netto blinked. "Really?" Then he broke out in a huge grin. "_Awesome!_" After a bout of triumphant laughter, he asked, "So what do you want to do first, Rockman?"

Without any thought or reasons how or why it came to him, Rockman knew. He raised one hand and, slipping under the lapelled front of the labcoat, pressed his palm to his brother's chest. Netto gave him a puzzled face, but he closed his eyes to focus on nothing but the rhythmic thump now in his hand.

"I've seen it," he explained softly, "once or twice. When you put my PET on top of yourself right. And I've heard it a few times, when you are holding me face-down and the speaker is placed right. But... I've always wanted to _feel_ your heartbeat, Netto-kun."

Netto responded with silence and, after a moment, another soft bumping of foreheads. They stood together, unmoving, until Robert poked his head out of the bathroom to inform them they had calculated the speed needed for entry. Then they locked eyes again, identical chocolate meeting a chocolate that had only been artificially masked with green, non-verbally asking each other the same question.

Rockman answered, calling out to the room beyond, "Would any of you Net Police have a speed gun in your car? We need it, please!"

Netto whooped, pumped his fists in the air, gave his brother a one-armed hug, and ran into the bathroom to collect the things they would need for their adventure.

* * *

Roll was a patient Navi.

…but even her patience had its limits. She opened a Date and Time window; one minute and thirty-seven seconds had passed since she last checked.

"Where _is_ he?"

Netto had called at 4 'o clock. The message he gave Meiru was pathetically short: "I'm okay, so's Rockman, but I can't talk. All the lines are crazy busy. Where's Roll? Is she okay?" When the answers were here and yes, he rushed out, "Good! I'll be late tonight, don't wait up. And don't worry! I'm fine! I love you!" Then he hung up on his wife before she could say another word.

Needless to say, Roll and Meiru were less than pleased with this report. But it had covered the essentials, so Meiru spent a significant less amount of time complaining about his rudeness than she normally would have.

The two of them had somehow come to an unspoken agreement that they should not turn on the television (for fear of what the news might be reporting), but after Netto's call it was turned on and stayed on until well after the last reports at ten o'clock. The aerial view wasn't a pleasant sight; most of the windows on the first floor of the main building were wrecked, as well as a few on the fourth floor. More importantly, however, were the two downed satellite dishes on the roof. The first in the row was untouched, the second one was standing crooked, and the third was smashed beyond repair four floors down in front of the main doors. News Channel 5 in particular had a juicy tidbit: in exchange for allowing a cameraman along for the ride, their weather helicopter had been borrowed by Ijuiin Enzan himself. Hoping to film the iconic Net Savior diving into a Dimensional Area, they'd been disappointed to find only aftermath at the scene.

Even though Netto had called to say that he and Rockman were okay, Roll couldn't tear her eyes off the wreckage. All of the news stations kept showing their initial footage of the scene when there was still an angry blaze of black smoke pouring out of the top left corner of the building. Roll did not have the layout of SciLabs memorized, but comparing against the parts she did know, that was right about where the stairs to the roof should be… the stairs which Rockman would have had to go up if he wanted to get to the roof.

What exactly had happened on the roof that was so violent as to push a forty kilogram satellite dish off its foundation and over the edge? To make that plume of smoke, to break those windows on the top floor? If Enzan was preparing for a Cross Fusion jump, then there must have been a Dimensional Area... so did Rockman and Netto have to Fuse? How had they done so with their terrible synchronicity and no helicopter? What insane mischief and risks had they gotten up to...?!

Roll opened the Date and Time again. 11:18 p.m., just over three minutes later than her last check. This was getting infuriating. When the television was on, she'd kept one eye on it and one on the portal that Rockman would use if he came home via internet. Now that the TV was off (the news reports were useless, nobody knew anything more than she did), Roll was staring at the glowing portal, waiting. Meiru joined in on the effort and took up post at the front window. Every now and then one of them would call out to the other to see if anything had changed.

But nothing had, so they continued to wait.

Where could they be? Were they hurt? Had something happened since the phone call? Roll was beyond irritated; she told Rockman she didn't want to sit and home and worry about him like some damsel in distress, and here she was doing exactly that. She should have gone back to SciLabs when the news crews starting leaving. Rockman would be upset with her, but what was the harm in being there after the danger had passed? Sure, security would have tough to get past to see him, but—

"Roll! Roll! His car! He's back!"

Roll jumped as though burned, and made a mad dash back to her PET. Her haste did her no good, however, as Meiru had left the PET face up on the kitchen table. All she could see was the ceiling and their dated light fixture. By now the front door had been thrown open, so Roll chose to stay where she was and listen rather than go somewhere with a better viewpoint.

"Meiru! I told you not to wait for me," Netto's voice chuckled.

A slap echoed in the doorway. "You idiot! What took you so long to get home? I was worried!"

"Ouch! Meiru, I told you I was okay!"

There was a thud this time. "I-idiot! You call," another thud, "and then hang up," a quieter one, "and then the news… What am I… s-supposed to think h-happened…?"

"Aah! Meiru, don't! I'm sorry! C'mon, let's get inside so you can keep hitting me without the neighbors seeing…"

oll heard the front door shut. As much as she was reluctant to ruin what was promising to be a tender _and_ very violent reunion between husband and wife, she couldn't take the suspense. "Netto-san? Is Rockman…?"

"Rockman! There she is, in her PET!" Netto called.

Under normal circumstances, Rockman sent a message asking permission to enter her PET even though she'd granted him permanent access ages ago. Under today's circumstances, he charged in with no warning, frantic.

"Roll-chan!"

They ran together, stopping half a meter shy of the other. They stared each other up and down. Roll found nothing wrong with Rockman, and from his loud sigh it was clear he was satisfied with his visual inspection as well.

"I'm home," he greeted.

"Welcome back," she returned.


End file.
